
Class B^i v^ 



Book 3 e) a 



?T2 



i 



5^^/d^ 



THE PRINCIPLES _ ^^^ 



OF 



Psychology. 



^^ fo 



c 



BY X-^" -^"^ ^■ 



JOHN BASCOM, 

Professor in Williams College, 



author of 

'political economy," "philosophy of rhetoric,' 
"esthetics," 



NEW YORK: 
G. P. PUTNAM AND SONS. 

LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO. 
1872. 






Entered according to Act ot Congress, In the year 1869, 

By G. P. PUTNAM & SON, 

In tbe Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Umted States for tht 

Southern District of New York. 



LC Control Number 




lililllliiliil 

tinp96 025778 



PREFACE. 



It has been a reproach to philosophy, generally and per- 
sistently put forward, that it makes no progress, that it lacks 
established elements, that it is a field of extravagant and 
contradictory theories. We do not accept these assertions 
in the unqualified way in which they are thrown out. So 
made, they are the result of ignorance and ungrounded 
contempt on the part of those who so easily utter them. So 
far, however, as these statements are true, they are a com- 
mon reproach and misfortune, to be removed only by more 
patient, more protracted, more guarded inquiry. To scorn 
and reject philosophy as presented under its own, its meta- 
physical form, subject to its own conditions, is simply to 
deepen the difficulty, and postpone indefinitely an answer 
to the most fundamental and central inquiries. If more 
than the usual number of mistakes have been made in this 
department, it is because more than the usual obstacles lie 
in the path of progress. These are not to be removed by 
discouragement, or by opening ways in other directions. 
All success to the students of physical science : but each of 
its fields may have its triumphs, and the secrets of mind re- 
main as unapproachable as hitherto. With philosophy and 



IV PREFACE. 

not without it, under its own laws and not under the laws 
of a lower realm, must be found those clues of success, 
those principles of investigation, which can alone place this 
highest form of knowledge in its true position. The fol- 
lowing treatise is at least a patient effort to make a contri- 
bution to this, amid all failures, chief department of thought. 
If asked why I hoped this volume might reward the peru- 
sal, I should answer. Not because the system presented is 
new, but because the statement it here receives is at once 
succinct and elaborate, is incidentally strengthened by new 
points, by a consistent maintenance of all that belongs to it, 
and by the rejection of that which, essentially alien to its 
principles, only embarrasses it. I trust the Intuitive Phi- 
losophy will be found hereby to have gained somewhat of 
that proof which springs from completeness and proportion 
of parts. 

I have acknowledged my obligations to others in cases in 
which they have been direct. I here especially express my 
indebtedness, in the general tone of the philosophy pre- 
sented, to the eminent explorer and instructor in this field, 
Dr. Hickok. 

Holding my work amenable to thorough criticism, I 
shall yet expect but little profit from the facile application 
of previous opinions to detached points ; or from any dis- 
cussion of the principles involved, less penetrative and sys- 
tematic than that here presented. I believe this treatise to 
have the integrity of a system, and to call, therefore, for a 
joint and complete judgment. To such handling I hope- 
fully commend it. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

PAOB 

^ 1. Value of PMlosophy. 1 

§ 2. Determines the rank of Man 2 

§ 3. Itself half the field of knowledge 4 

§ 4. Its connection with moral and religious truth 6 

§ 5. Satisfaction taken in disparaging metaphysics — other 
departments suffer therefrom — Assertion of entire want of 

established principles not true — Proofs of progress given. 8 

§ 6. Postulates of Philosophy 13 



BOOK L— The Intellect. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE AND ITS DIYISIONS. 

§ 1. Field of Philosophy, Consciousness — Distrust of Con- 
sciousness 16 

§ 2. Difficulties of Philosophy — Methods of observation — 
Nature of the phenomena — Language — Analogies — Unwill- 
ingness to accept finalities 18 

§ 3. Aids to inquiry — Language — History — Physical life and 

organs — Phrenology 33 

§ 4. Division of faculties — Desires belong with the feelings.. . 26 

§ 5. Volition and choice, not separable 27 

§ 6. The relation of consciousness to the three classes of fac- 
ulties 29 



Vi CONTENTS. 

§ 7. Are there any mentaJ phenomena below conscious- 
ness ? Hamilton — His arguments considered — Memory — 
Acquired skill — Association of ideas 80 

§ 8. A subconscious region allied to materialism — Unknow- 
able 41 

§ 9. Is the mind always eonsciously active ? Reasons for — 
Antecedent improbability — Dreams — Somnambulism — Cer- 
tain other facts 43 ' 

CHAPTER II. 

THE INTELLECT — ITS DIVISIONS — PEECEPTION. 

§ 1. Divisions 49 

§ 2. The Senses — Divisions of them 60 

§ 3. What do we see ? — Eye deals only Avith colors — These in- 
termediate between it and things — Sight full of j udgments 
— The same true of hearing — Idealism — Hamilton's doctrine 
of perception — What relation the eye bears to the mind 

in perception 62 

§ 4. Idealism in reference to perception 61 

§ 5. The doctrine of perception 62 

§ 6. No denial of consciousness — The real point of conflict 
with common belief — What this involves — Confirmatory 

considerations 64 

§ 7. Primary and secondary qualities — Criteria of — The ap- 
plication of these in the qualities of solidity and extension^ 
The distinction breaks down — Incidental proofs furnished 

to intuition 68 

§ 8. Consciousness as a source of knowledge 76 

CHAPTER III. 

THE UNDEESTANDING. 

§ 1. What the understanding includes — Memory — What 
— ^physical connections 77 

§ 2. Theories of memory — Hamilton's theory — Its defects — 
Such theories a priori 81 

§ 3. Association as connected with memory — Habit— Growth 
of mind — Divisions of memory 85 



CONTENTS. Vii 

§ 4. Qualities of memory — Kinds of memory — Association de- 
pendent on memory — Memory, how cultivated — Advan- 
tages and dangers of a strong memory 88 

§ 5. Imagination 93 

§ 6. Theories of imagination — Bain — Hamilton 94 

§ 7. Influence of imagioation on passions — On judgment — 
On action — On character 98 . 

4. 

§ 8. How cultivated — The word conception 100 

§ 9. The judgment — Importance of 102 

§ 10. Erroneous views of judgment — Sir Wm. Hamilton — 
Bain — The doctrine that all judgments involve resem- 
blance — Simplest judgment — Presence of a regulative idea. 104 
§ 11. Judgments which unite two objects — Involve an intui- 
tive idea — A third class of judgments 110 

§ 12. A second use of the word conceive — Relations of the 
understanding — Relation of included powers 114 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE EEASON. 

§ 1. Disagreement as to existence of this faculty — Impor- 
tance of the discussion — What understood by the reason — 

The several intuitive ideas , 116 

§ 2. Existence — Bain 119 

§ 3. Number 122 

§ 4. Space — Spencer's view given — Sustained by Bain — Con- 
troverted — Included intuitions 124 

§ 5. Time — Spencer's view stated and examined 136 

§ 6. Resemblance — The manner in which this notion has 

been used. 141 

§ 7. Cause and effect — What — In this form rejected by the 
Empirical School — Proof that this is the actual working 
idea in the human mind — Language — Science — Philosophy 
— Sir William Hamilton — His view controverted — Tliree 
reasons against it — Intuitive doctrine damaged by its ad- 
vocates — Things involved in cause and effect 144 

§ 8. Relation of these six ideas — Consciousness a regulative 

idea — Not so presented by others 154 

§ 9. Beauty — This quality generally accepted — Referred to 



Vlll . CONTENTS. 

utility — To Unity — To association — Of intuitive ori- 
gin 156 

§ 10. Right — General phenomena accepted — Right referred 
to utility — How far the utilitarian right — Utility fails to 
account for the sense of obligation — Things which obscure 
in this connection the truth — Sense of obligation not 
found in public opinion — Striking moral phenomena unex- 
plained — The useful, as such, imposes no sense of duty — 
Experience does not conform to the theory — But two theo- 
ries plausible — An eflfbrt to combine them — Blessedness — 
Bentham 159 

§ 11. Liberty — What it implies — Not conscious of it 175 

§ 12. The notion of the infinite — How it arises — Space — 
Time — God — The law of the conditioned — The infinite a 
positive idea — Spencer — Practical use of the idea 177 

§ 13. Criteria of intuitive ideas — Necessity — Universality — 
How api^lied 188 

§ 1 4. Are these ideas merely forms of thought ?^0f inde- 
pendent, external application 189 

§ 15. Grouping of these ideas 193 

CHAPTER V. 

THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 

^ 1. Indebtedness of philosophy to the Materialistic School — 
Development of faculties — Sensation — Knowledge gained 
of the body — The objective character of experience — Regu- 
lative ideas present, how 194 

§ 2. Acquisition of knowledge — Resemblance — Why a know- 
ledge of resemblances is sought — Knowledge of the mind 
— Dangers of the transition — Knowledge of God — Deduc- 
tion and induction 203 

§ 3. Steps of progress — Sensation — Judgment — Reasoning — 
Deduction — Induction — Hamilton — Mill — What is reason- 
ing? — True character of deduction and induction 207 

§ 4. The control of the mind over its thoughts — How many 
objects can be attended to at once — How far does the 
mind control the order of its ideas — Association — wrong 
view of — Dependence on memory — Control of the mind 
complete, if long periods are contemplated 214 



CONTENTS. IX 

§ 5. Difference of endowment in man' and in the animal — Too 
high, estimate of the powers of animals — Prot. Whitney 
quoted — How tricks are acquired by animals — Methods of 
training — ^DiflB.culties attendant on supposing that brutes 
think — Cases of marked knowledge — Consequences of the 
view given 219 



BOOK IL— The Feelings. 

§ 1. Distinction between feelings and thoughts — The first, 
single; the second, double — Thought more immediately 
subject to the will — Less directly influences the wiU. 229 

§ 2. Division of the feelings — Use of words 233 

CHAPTER I. 

PHYSICAL -FEELTNGS. 

§ 1. Division of the physical feelings 234 

§ 2. Special senses — Sensations and perceptions — Touch — 

Eelation of sensation to pleasure 235 

§ 3. Indefinite senses — Sense of pressure — Of heat — Feelings 

which indicate a physical condition — Effect on action 238 

§ 4. Appetites — Purposes subserved — Irritability — Natural 

Affections 240 

CHAPTER II. 

THE INTBLIZECTUAL FEELINGS. 

§ 1. Division — ^Desires — ^Not primitive — Division of — Differ- 
ent degrees of strength 244 

§ 2. Eeelings dependent on desires — Hope — Joy — Feelings 
occasioned by the relation of others to our success — Feel- ' 
ings drawn forth by our own connection with success— Van- 
ity— Pride 249 

§ 3. Peelings which accompany failure — Fear — Discourage- 
ment — Disappointment — Envy — Jealousy — Dislike — Ma- 
levolent Feelings 253 



X CONTENTS. 

§ 4. Admiratioa — Contempt — Good-will — Compassion 254 

§ 5. General conditions affecting intellectual feelings — Nov- 
elty — Harmony — Sympathy — Association — Imagination. . . 256 

CHAPTER ni. 

THE SPEBITUAIj FEELINGS. 

§ 1. Wliat these are — Their divisions — Feeling elicited by 
truth 258 

§ 2. ^sthetical feelings — why spiritual feelings obscure — 
Conditions of a perception of beauty — EfiFects on action — 
Relation of aesthetics and ethics 263 

§ 3. Moral sentiments — Effect on other emotions — Obligation 
— Certainty of moral feelings 268 

§ 4. Affections — Religious sentiments 271 

CHAPTER IV. 

DYNAMICS OF THE FEELINGS. 

§ 1. Generalization by Hamilton — Offices of the several 
classes of feeling — Relation to health, to choice of means, 
to choice of ends 273 

§ 2. Order of development in the three classes successive. . . . 276 

§ 3. Communities take up the law of growiih — Strength of a 
ruling feeling 277 

§ 4. Expenditure of vital force in emotion — Duration of — 
Labor and play — Success affords relief to labor 279 

§ 5. Animal life in its feelings — Utilitarianism 280 



BOOK III.— The Will. 

^ 1. Relations of the will — Subdivisions 283 

CHAPTER I. 

VITAL ACTION ANTICIPATOBT OF VOLITION. 

§ 1. Life — The nervous system — Its constitution and office. 284 
§ 2. Nervous action as involuntary — The seat of involuntary 
action — Of voluntary action 290 



CONTENTS. XI 

§ 3. Reflex action — The blending of voluntary and involun- 
tary action 298 

CHAPTER n. 

EXECUTITB VOLITION. 

§ 1. Distinction — Executive volitions intermediate — "Without 
liberty — Of secondary interest 295 

§ 2. Action of animals — Skill, how acquired — Subconscious 
region — Mingling of voluntary and involuntary activity — 
The passage of one into the other 296 

CHAPTER in. 

PEIMABX VOLITION, OE CHOICE. 

§ 1, Divisions of volition that pertain to their practical 
bearings 300 

§ 2. Choice — Distinguished — Must be an alternative to action 
as a condition of liberty 301 

§,3. Motives must be unlike in kind — A moral element must 
be present as a condition of choice — The connection, of mo- 
tives and choice 303 

§ 4. The theory that the will is governed by the strongest 
motive — Its philosophical difficulties — Inductive difficulties. 304 

§ 5. Effect on liberty and responsibility of this view — Such 
a will a superfluity 307 

§ 6. Whence the idea of weaker and stronger motives — 
Does not contemplate the moral nature — Whence springs 
a sense of guilt. 307 

§ 7. Objected to liberty that it admits no control — That it is 
synonymous with chance 309 

§ 8. Proof of liberty — Not found in consciousness — Inferred 
from law, from moral nature — Bain — Moral phenomena 
subverted by him • 311 

§ 9. Proof of liberty found in the fact that we imiversaUy 
attribute it under given conditions 316 

CHAPTER IV. 

DYNAMICS OF THE WILL AND OF THE MIND. 

§ 1. The wUl strengthened by use — Activities differently 
called forth in different persons — Temperaments 817 



Xn CONTENTS. 

§ 2. Order of activities — Reflex relation 818 

§ 3. Control exercised by the wUl 320 

§ 4. The feelings central — Their relations to pleasure — The 
rational emotions 321 

CHAPTER V. 

THE BELATIONS OF THE SYSTEMS HEEE OKFEEED TO PBEYAT.F.KT ' 
FOEMS or PHTLOSOPHT. 

§ 1. Value of general convictions — Postulate what — How 
the material world established — Connection between matter 
and mind 324 

§ 2. Materialism — Its a priori character — Correlation of forces 
— Its weakness must give way to idealism — Mills's 
system 330 

§ 3. Hamilton — Direct perception 336 

§ 4. Idealism — Excellences — Defects — True philosopher in- 
quires how much, not how little he may assume 839 

§ 4, The philosophy now presented recognizes aU the forms 
of knowing — Independent validity of the notions of causa- 
tion and of liberty — Relations of the two — Causation con- 
nected with space — Liberty with consciousness — Liberty 
lies back of causation 342 



INTRODUCTION. 



§ I, Though a knowledge of the value of a subject is not 
necessary to its successful pursuit, yet it imparts to our in- 
■quiries peculiar zest and pleasure. We shall never fully 
understand the advantages connected with any science, till 
we have mastered it ; and it is thus natural that each should 
praise his own favorite pursuit, experiencing daily the en- 
joyment and power it confers. Nor is this commendation 
usually, in itself considered, excessive ; it is chiefly at fault 
as it disparages other investigations, in themselves possessed 
of rival claims. As the fashion of thought in our time is 
to underrate philosophy, a brief space bestowed to urging 
its importance will not be misemployed. 

We shall not enlarge on the pre-eminent mental disci- 
pline it gives, the acuteness of analysis, the steadiness of 
attention, the breadth of principles. All study imparts 
more or less of this training, and some are willing to be- 
lieve that metaphysics bestow an unprofitable subtility 
of intellect, a gymnastic dexterity of thought ; more fit for 
show than service, more likely to mislead than guide their 
possessors. There are certain peculiar and pre-eminent 
considerations on which we would chiefly rest our estimate 
of philosophy. 

The facts which it furnishes are most intimate to our 



2 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

own actions, to the mastery and ordering of our own 
thoughts, and to the influence we are to exert over others. 
It is indeed possible, that there should be healthy and suc- 
cessful intellectual action, a wise play of the emotions and 
of the moral nature, without understanding them. So 
may there be physical health without hygiene ; yet who 
will deny an influence of the knowledge of the laws of 
life in the government of life ? To pick up a few facts so 
personal, so of our very selves, as those which pertain to 
mind, cannot but be of the highest moment in ordering our 
action. Indeed, every man who has any claims to general 
knowledge is a philosopher, however much he may deny it, 
and however false and limited his conclusions may be. 
It is not a question whether there shall be philosophy 
among men; this there must be, if men are to think and 
act at all; but whether this philosophy shall be a true or 
false one. Yet we do not wish to dwell on the value even 
of the facts which mental science gives, their direct practi- 
cal worth in affording rules for intellectual training, and for 
influence over others ; but rather to point out certain 
broader relations of philosophy, which make its acquisition 
yet more imperative. 

§ 2. In the first place, no true notion of the dignity of 
man will be attained without it. If we consider man ex- 
clusively in his external relations, in his physical organiza- 
tion, and the ministration of nature to him, though we 
shall certainly assign him, if we reflect wisely, a pre-emi- 
nent position, we shall by no means measure his true 
worth. The forces and lives of the world grade up to 
him, and grade down from him ; and while he is the high- 
est and latest of living things, he is nevertheless of them, 
ruling by a superiority, not by a complete separation of na- 
ture. The body of man is ver}^ perfect ; but those other 
organisms are also in kind marvelous. The brain of man is 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

very large ; but those other brains are large also, and ap- 
parently thoughtful. Having traveled in classification all 
the way up from infusoria, the last strides of progress, 
great as they are, do not impress us as throwing man out of 
the general range and fortunes of the life of which he makes 
a part. 

As a matter of fact, those whose attention has been most 
external in its objects, who have studied nature, and man 
in nature, have held comparatively disparaging views of the 
rank of the human race. They have often put it in the 
direct line of development with the life below it ; they 
have thought it to share its intellectual and moral endow- 
ments with the higher animals ; and they have subjected it, 
in common with all life, to the fatalistic lock of physical 
forces. Approaching man from below, we interpret him 
from the types of power we find in nature, we limit his lib- 
erty or rob him of it, we expound his moral nature by the 
law of utility, so obtrusive in the acquisition of physical 
good ; while we seem to find the germ and outline of his 
intellectual constitution in brute instincts, perceptions, as- 
sociations. We are thus as those who contemplate in a 
statue more the pedestal on which it rests, the marble of 
which it is made, the measurements to which it conforms, 
than the living, spiritual power it expresses. 

There is no adequate defence against this tendency, no 
reasoning man out of this grasp of scientific classification, 
fi-om the position of bimana among quadrumana, from 
his rank as co-ordinate in structure with the gibbering mon- 
key, the grinning chimpanzee, the brute-headed gorilla, 
. except through philosophy — ^without reversing the process, 
beginning at the top and moving downward — without con- 
sidering that which is internal, and overshadowing with it, 
transient, external conditions. Suppose, for instance, as the 
result of such direct, independent inquiry, it is found that 



4 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

liberty belongs to man, a power altogether unique, with no 
prediction or type in nature ; that the moral intuition, the 
necessaiy accompaniment of freedom, transforming it into 
self-poised, responsible life, is equally independent and 
primarj' ; do we not in these two pillars of personality dis- 
cover supports which lift the spiritual life into an entirely 
new region, which cannot be broken by all the blind* 
giants of simple, physical induction that may bow them- 
selves against them ? If also it shall appear that the intel- 
lectual action of man is throughout different in kind from 
that of the animal ; that we have no proof that the truly 
rational elements, the regulative ideas of thought, ever 
enter the lower field of life, ever transform associations 
into comprehension, then shall we again see, that we have 
reached a new plane ; not the completion of that which is 
below, but the commencement of that which is above ; not 
to be explained from the earth upwards, but from the hea- 
vens downwards. 

To estimate man outwardly, physically, is to judge a 
temple from the exterior, is to decide upon it by the order 
of its architecture, the bevel of its stones, the greatness of 
its workmanship, without entering its shrine, seeing its 
worship, or studying its ritual. So to judge man is as if 
we should pronounce on the supernatural claims of Christ 
by an inquir}- into his human features and Jewish charac- 
teristics, in perfect oversight of the subject matter of the 
question. Man is to rank according to his spiritual consti- 
tution, and that it is the office of philosophy, and philoso- 
phy alone, to inquire into. We must go within the mind, 
see its structure and appliances, before we can know the 
dignity of the race. If this is denied us, if these portals 
are locked against us, we can only remain mute till the key 
shall be brought us. 

§ 3. The second great office of philosophy is to furnish 
a counterpoise, a complement and corrective to the me- 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

thods of natural science. It is not because we overlook 
the legitimacy and practical value of these methods, nor be- 
cause we di'sparage induction, a chief builder in the tem- 
ple of knowledge, one that has commenced and is carrying 
briskly onward some of its most showy and serviceable por- 
tions, that we urge the rank of philosophy; but for this end, 
that the two may be seen to be truly supplemental each to 
each, that the arrogance of science and its supercilious denials 
may be felt to diminish the worth of its own services, and 
so to cut down the scope of human faculties and hopes as 
to make knowledge itself comparatively trivial and nuga- 
tory. It is the nature of the mind that knows, that gives 
significancy to knowing, and if this term, the one most in- 
timate to ourselves, in which alone we are deeply con- 
cerned, is to be excluded from knowledge ; if the disem- 
bodied spirit is to be left wandering on the further shore in 
the limbo of things forever uncertain and unknowable, 
then, indeed, is it a most minute and unsatisfactory gain, 
that our unexplored and unfathomed powers lay hold for 
a little of the things about them ; a small matter that the 
stream, rushing on, we know not whither, yields a troubled 
reflection of the shrubs on its banks. 

We claim, that the knowledge that centres directly in 
mind, in its moral and intellectual powers, and in the so- 
cial, civil, and religious actions that arise immediately from 
them, is a full half of all knowledge ; and that the me- 
thods of reasoning employed in these departments, while 
very different from the naked inductions of science, con- 
stitute the nobler moiety of intellectual life. We urge at- 
tention to philosophy, because the sphere of thought can- 
not be complete without it, cannot be rounded into a well- 
balanced and stable orb. 

If there has been one devolopment more preposterous 
than all others in the growth of knowledge, that develop- 
ment is Positive Philosophy — a scheme that scouts meta- 



6 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

physics, and yet can do it on no other than metaphysical 
grounds ; that determines what may be known and what 
may not be known, and puts among the things to be 
discarded the knowing faculties ; that uses philosophy 
to blow up philosophy, and on the ground thus cleared 
builds up a cobble-house of facts, every one of whose con- 
nections must yet be as purely intellectual as those of mental 
science itself This is as if the eye, failing to look back- 
ward as well as forward, inward as well as outward, should 
deny the existence of anything in that direction, and affirm 
the objects before itself to be ultimate, the only resolu- 
tion of facts into ideas. To save us from such pitiful phi- 
losophizing, we need philosophy. 

We are, then, in peculiar want of this branch of know- 
ledge, since it is a hemisphere of itself, holding in equi- 
poise the world of truth ; since in it are found new regula- 
tive ideas, new laws, new lines of order, and also the tests 
of the validity of knowledge, and the rational grounds on 
which the limits of inquiry are established. Patches of 
truth may be given here and there by science, but land- 
marks, a synthetic rendering of the whole, can only be se- 
cured by the aid of philosophy. 

§ 4. A last reason we shall urge for these lines of 
investigation is, that intelligent, moral action and religious 
faith must rest upon them. Fortunately, considering the 
premises from which they start, men are so illogical, that 
they find no difficulty in believing much which in consis- 
tency they ought not to believe, no difficulty in doing that 
for which their own philosophy can render them no ade- 
quate reasons. But in spite of the fact that there is often 
an interior coherence in action, in the unconscious work- 
ings of our constitution, which does not appear in our 
reasonings, a false, deficient philosophy will, from time 
to time, come to the surface in unbelief, irreligion, immo- 
rality ; the ground will soften under long trodden paths of 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

feith ; and many blind pilgrims, plunged into an unex- 
pected quagmire, will fail to reach the farther shore. All 
the ideas on which morality and religion rest are established 
and defined in the realm of metaphysics, and to deny us 
this branch of knowledge, or to treat it slightly, is to put 
us, in the conflict with unbelief, at such disadvantage that 
we can never maintain our ground. We may, indeed, ' 
shut our eyes, and stand fast ; we may stop our ears, and 
run from the questionings and claims of scepticism; but 
we cannot maintain our position in quiet and serene convic- 
tion, without searching for those foundations of truth found 
in the discarded field of philosophy. 

The nature of right and its obligations, of liberty and its 
responsibilities, of the infinite in its application to God, 
as well as the positive and negative knowledge we have 
of his existence and attributes, are to be established by an 
inquiry into the phenomena of mind, the truths present to 
it, their source and authority. To hope, therefore, for 
morality and religion, and yet to sink out of sight those 
abutments on which they are to rest, is infatuation. Those 
do not so hope who wittingly do this work of denial and 
overthrow, — quite the contrary. Very many of them well 
understand that their mines run beneath the sacred edifices 
of religion, the spiritual labors and history of the race, and 
that, if they can be fully and successfully fired, these will 
sink, a mass of ruins, into a black, sulphureous chasm. 
We say, therefore, the intellectual battle between belief and 
unbelief, religion and irreligion, must be fought, in large 
part, in the fields of philosophy. The truths of revelation 
must be vindicated or overthrown by their relation to man's 
constitution, his powers of knowledge and obedience, and 
the rational stretch of his hopes. 

Simple, then, are the reasons for philosophy, if philoso- 
phy be possible. We must abandon ourselves later than 
all things else, consent to darkness ever}^vhere, if we can 



8 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

only strike a cheerful light at this fireside of our home. 
Unfortunate, indeed, would ii be to lose the reins of power 
wherewith we guide the forces of nature, but far more un- 
fortunate to miss the right handling of ourselves, and that 
serene strength which wins the rewards of life. 

§ 5. But is philosophy possible ? Is there not rather 
foundation for those many taunts and denials, asserting the 
endless, hopeless round of conflicting theories, the entire 
want of progress, the inevitable uncertainty attaching to 
every conclusion, and all conclusions, in metaphysics ? 
If philosophy be not possible, if there is ground for the 
scorn and incredulity with which labor in this department 
is often regarded, so much the worse for us all. Nothing 
can take the place of philosophy. If we are doomed to 
ignorance here, our ignorance is hopeless and pitiable. 
We fail to understand the satisfaction with which some 
snuff out this light, when they have nothing wherewith to 
replace it — nothing better to propose than the desertion 
of this whole region, and a surrender of it to confusion 
and chaos. The injunction, ' ' know thyself, " the revered 
precept of all time hitherto, thus becomes impossible, and 
to modern thinkers, ridiculous. Outside of ourselves, we 
move with patient inquiry ; we may feed our senses, and 
through them the mind ; but we harvest home this know- 
ledge, we know not for what ends. We gather facts, igno- 
rant of their ulterior, spiritual uses, as the ox grazes, letting 
digestion and nutrition care for themselves. We see no 
grounds for congratulation in such a result. If it must be 
accepted, it yet remains a painful and sad alternative, turn- 
ing the key in a door which above all others we would fain 
open, hiding from us things which most reveal the invisible 
world. It is as if some one, moiling long and patiently and 
profitably in the bowels of the earth, knowing how to pick, 
and blast, and shovel, and sure of the productiveness of those 
processes, should, hearing of the miscarriages, accidents, 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

and embarrassments of the upper world, begin to deny 
this region to himself and to others, and to make it the 
dogma of his life, that there was but one form of sure, safe 
and remunerative labor, but one unmistakable and positive 
good, and that was mining. We console ourselves, in 
view of such conclusions, with their entire falsity, and the 
utter impossibility of their general acceptance. 

Other departments, moreover, besides philosophy, are to 
suffer from this rejection of the philosophical spirit. The 
positive sciences themselves require for their successful cul- 
tivation something beyond an observation of facts — a classi- 
fication of resemblances. There is ever kept hovering before 
the mind some idea of the causes, the concealed grounds and 
reasons, of phenomena ; audit is this supers ensual notion 
which guides inquiry, directs the eye, and teaches it what to 
observe. Without this, the classifications of science would 
come to little more than the child's art in grouping its bits 
of crockery by size or color or the conceits of fancy. It 
has been, for illustration, some notion of the nature of light, 
either as a material emanation, or a movement in a generally 
diffused ether, that has directed inquiry, instituted experi- 
ments, and interpreted facts. Yet there is nothing in phi- 
losophy itself more subtile, more impossible of conception, 
more evasive and evanescent than either of these supersen- 
sual conceptions, which have presided over this depart- 
ment, and resulted in most brilliant discoveries. Deny a 
search into intangible and inconceivable causes, causes 
that in their inception are- purely theoretical, and we lose at 
once the clew of our labyrinth, and henceforth wander at 
chance, with no forecast of thought, through its endless 
passages. Another illustration is furnished by the corre- 
lation of forces. Some notion of a hidden equivalence 
between very diverse phenomena haunts the mind, of a 
concealed agreement where no apparent agreement exists. 
This it is which sets the inquirer at work, quickens his 



lO PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

thoughts, and leads him to new observations and experi- 
ments. 

But how vain is it to demand positive, direct knowledge 
through the senses of this notion itself, so serviceable and 
indispensable ? If we are to banish, as the ghosts of past 
superstitions, all the disembodied ideas the mind furnishes 
to positive science, we shall shortly be left without guid- 
ance, deserted of these good angels of thought, in whose 
absence eyes and ears are of no avail. We are in science, 
no less than in philosophy, constantly reaching and hand- 
ling supersensual notions, purely mental phenomena ; we 
are ever making them most fruitful sources of farther acqui- 
sitions, though certainly with no more full, definite and 
positive knowledge of their very nature than that we pos- 
sess of mental phenomena from consciousness. Indeed, 
the moment we penetrate a very little below the surface, 
Positive Philosophy is of the same nature with that which it 
discards, is dealing with causes, forces and reasons which 
are wholly the offspring of the mind, and the limits of 
whose legitimate use must be determined on purely intel- 
lectual grounds. 

Nor is philosophy itself without its fixed, settled facts as 
generally admitted, and as incontrovertible as those of any 
science whatever. The laws of association, recollection, 
attention, judgment, imagination, of the emotions, of re- 
sponsibility, constitute a large department of knowledge, of 
accepted conclusions. The principles and precepts therein 
involved are running hourly through our processes of rea- 
soning, our persuasion, our judicial action, our social 
opinions. Indeed, no single science, unless, perhaps, we 
except mathematics, is furnishing so many, so constant, so 
undoubted guides, both to those who maintain, and to 
those who deny, its theoretical value, as philosophy, with 
its adjuncts of logic, aesthetics and ethics. Totally untrue 
then is the representation, that metaphysics is a helpless 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

medley of contradictory and unverified theories. An ap- 
pearance of truth is given to this assertion by directing 
attention from established facts to those skirting and par- 
tially explored fields of ontological inquiry, of the sources 
of our mental furniture, and of the authority of our facul- 
ties. We might thus discredit the established facts of elec- 
tricity on the ground of conflicting opinions concerning the 
nature of the fluid or fluids or physical states which consti- 
tute it. 

Now it is evident, from the nature of the case, that more 
of these ultimate questions, more of these points at which 
direct, sensible knowledge ends, must belong to philosophy 
than to any other branch. The postulates and definitions 
of knowledge are conditioned on the faculties of mind, on 
its necessary action, and to state these in their safe, ultimate, 
fixed form; to settle where knowing, in all its phases, 
begins, and to give the reasons and grounds of these state- 
ments, is a late and difficult task, and one which should not, 
by its slow, laborious and partial results, prejudice a depart- 
ment which is highest in rank, as it is most recondite and 
ultimate in its conclusions. 

What act more indolent and unscientific than to jump to 
the conclusion, that these deepest questions are unsearcha- 
ble and fruitless — than to turn our back on a region that 
does not at once yield its secrets ? Nor are we without pro- 
gress in these most obscure directions of philosophical 
inquiry. In some cases, the true conditions of the problem 
are better seen — what is. to be hoped for and what not; in 
others, the grounds of attack and defence are shifted. Many 
arguments and presentations have been exploded, and, 
though others have taken their place, there has been pro- 
gress, progress toward an ultimate decision. The battle 
surges and rolls onward, and is not endless. The doctrine 
of human liberty is an example of the first sort. A more 
consistent statement of what it involves can to-day be made 



12 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

than ever before. It can be better distinguished from every 
form of necessity, and set apart with proper Umits, and more 
defensible boundaries than hitherto. To be sure we cannot 
explain freedom in the ordinary meaning of the word, but 
we can see why such explanations are not, and ought not 
to be applicable. As an illustration of the second form of 
progress, we instance the discussions as to the sources of 
knowledge ; whether among these are intuitive ideas. The 
doctrine, that experience is the ground of all knowledge, is 
a very different one in the hands of Spencer and Bain from 
what it was as expounded by Locke. The later champions 
pronounce the earlier proofs and defences insufficient. Con- 
fessedly then this school has been driven in part from its 
line of argument. Herein is movement, looking to an 
ultimate solution of the problem. Though inner lines suc- 
ceed one another, the city cannot be besieged forever. The 
grounds of conflict and the balance of strength are su-ffering 
daily changes, and though the conclusion may be yet far off, 
we see that it is slowly prepared for by what transpires about 
us. This discussion is not simply the dogged reiteration of 
affirmation and denial, the striking of shadowy forms with 
immaterial weapons, the wounds of to-day closing against 
the battle of to-morrow. Quite the reverse ; old points are 
yielded, new points are made ; light in turn is thrown upon 
them, and we move forward toward a conclusion, — move 
slowly it may be, but as certainly as when the discussion 
pertains to the natuie of heat or light. Reid dogmatically 
asserted as a tenet of common sense what philosophy ever 
since has been defending, limiting, settling on rational 
grounds. 

Much work, indeed, remains to be done. The grounds 
of reasoning are to be more definitely fixed in this higher 
department ; the logic of philosophy to be unfolded, restrain- 
ing erratic, fanciful movement, bending effort to fruitful 
results, and urging discussion to a speedy issue. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

If the inductive sciences owe so much to a new organum, 
a new form of logic, and that too to one laclcing the strict 
proof of previous, deductive branches of inquiry, is it not 
rational to expect that farther modifications of method, a 
new estimate of the nature and qualities of the proof appli- 
cable to the unique and remote questions of metaphysics 
will be equally productive, will yield fresh fruits to wiser' 
investigation. 

§ 6. Before proceeding to the facts of philosophy, I wish 
to lay down a few of its postulates most frequently violated. 
First, the mind has direct, intuitive knowledge, which is 
ultimate, which admits of no farther explanation than that 
involved in the very act of knowing. To derive all things 
from something more ultimate, by analogies and resem- 
blance to explain all things, are plainly impossible. The 
mind must have starting points, and these must be arrived 
at directly, intuitively. It is irrational not to recogizne the 
beginning, or to strive to get back of it with an explanation. 
What these points of commencement are it is the office of 
philosophy to decide, and to arrest explanation and all 
effort toward it, when these have been reached. 

A second postulate is, that there are different kinds of 
knowing, each independent of the others, each incapable of 
affording any light within the field of the others. The 
various forms of knowing show the various powers of the 
mind. The independence and diversity of the matter given 
reveal the independence and ultimate character of the facul- 
ties through which it is reached. If one knowing faculty 
could overlook another, the second would by that very fact 
be lost or merged in the first ; since for the two there would 
be but one line of perception. We have two eyes, but only 
one power of sense or sight, and this sense can do nothing, 
absolutely nothing, to cover the phenomena of mind, of 
taste, or of smell. The additional and independent action 
of each intuitive faculty is involved in the very fact of it 



14 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

being a faculty, a distinct power of doing a distinct 
work. 

The reverse statement is evidently equally true, and gives 
us a third postulate, that we have as many intuitive faculties 
as we have distinct forms of primitive knowledge. The 
presence of an idea, a perception in consciousness, must be 
explained ; and if it cannot by analysis be resolved into 
simpler forms, or by deduction be derived from a more 
primitive action, it must be accepted as itself primary, and 
the power to attain it be recognized. The question of ele- 
ments is not different here from the kindred question in 
the physical \vorld. Each form of matter ranks as an ele- 
ment, till chemical analysis has resolved it. The classified 
fruits of knowing imply as many powers of knowing, till 
the classification can be corrected by a reduction of the 
number of genera. 

A last postulate is, that what is conceded, — avowedly, 
tacitly, or impliedly, — at one point, must be freely conceded 
at all points. Processes which themselves assume the good- 
ness of our faculties, must not conclude with a denial or 
impeachment of their integrity. A doubt must have a rea- 
son, a premise, and if this premise involves confidence in 
the very reasoning by which the foundations of reasoning 
are disturbed, that doubt is self-destructive. An idea, whose 
valid possession is denied, must not be allowed to enter 
furtively into those very processes of thought from which it 
is professedly eliminated. If it cannot be removed in the 
mind's ordinary action, it must not be removed in an 
exhaustive scientific statement of that action. 

If these postulates are truly adhered to, we shall cut our- 
selves off from a great deal of impossible and absurd effort 
to assimilate one form of knowing to another; from a feel- 
ing of dissatisfaction because our anal}tic inquiries, our logic 
are brought at length to a halt; from denying all knowledge 



INTRODUCTION. 



15 



because it does not assume a familiar and specified form of 
knowing; and from deceptively using ideas in the very 
attack which we make upon them, knitting together our 
reasonings with axioms stolen from an adverse system. 



BOOK I. 



THE INTELLECT. 



CHAPTER L 
7 he Field of Mental Science and its Divisions, 

§ I. There is no branch of knowledge more distinctly 
defined in its limits than mental science. It lies in a unique 
realm, cut off from every other, — that of consciousness. All 
the phenomena of this field in their separation, classification, 
mutual interaction and dependencies are the subjects of this 
science and its only subjects. There is thus little opportu- 
nity to confound the inquiries belonging to philosophy with 
those of any other department. Logic and Ethics most 
nearly approach it ; but the one considers abstractly the 
products or process of thought, and not the thinking pow- 
ers ; and the other, the moral constitution of the mind, and 
is so far a branch of philosophy, adding thereto, however, 
an evolution of practical precepts from moral principles. 

Anatomy and physiology, on the side of the natural 
sciences, are most closely allied to philosophy, yet, after all, 



THE FIELD OF BIENTAL SCIENCE. 1 7. 

deal only with the physical conditions and instruments of 
mental action, and, without the key and interpretation of 
mental science itself, can cast no light whatever upon it. 
The facts of philosophy lie in consciousness ; here they are 
to be sought, and every fact therein contained is to be made 
the subject of consideration. 

Consciousness is commensurate with all mental states and 
acts. It accompanies feeling as much as thinking, and 
volition as much as either. The only possible way in 
which a mental state or act can be testified to, is by con- 
sciousness ; some mind at some time has known or felt it. 
An event that happens nowhere in . space is not a physical 
event ; an act or state that is not found in the field of con- 
sciousness is not a mental act or state. There are either 
facts that are neither physical nor mental, that exist neither 
in space nor consciousness, but in some unintelligible form 
in some third, unknown region, or all facts fall under these 
two divisions ; and it remains the criterion of one class that 
they occur in space, and of the other that they occur in con- 
sciousness. A third state is inadmissible as unknown and 
unnecessary. Consciousness is neither a knowing nor a 
feeling nor a willing, is neither this nor that mental act, 
but a condition common to them all, a field in which they 
appear, in which they arise and make proof of their exist- 
ence. A consciousness of knowing is necessary to know- 
ing, a consciousness of feeling is necessary to feeling, and 
of willing to volition ; and as these three cover all states and 
acts of mind, consciousness is involved in the very concep- 
tion of a mental act or state. It is an inseparable something 
which defines the nature of the phenomena to which it 
pertains. 

Consciousness gives — we use familiar language, a more 
careful expression would be, in consciousness is found — 
the mere fact of a mental state, that it is, and what it is, 
whether one of thought, feeling, or volition; or a complex 



1 8 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

one involving two or more of these. It renders phenomena 
as they exist, not analytically but synthetically, as the eye 
colors, or the ear sounds. To reach the primary colors 
which constitute the tint, the separate notes which form the 
harmony, calls for attention and discrimination. The mere 
facts of mind as facts are rendered in consciousness, and to 
be found there and only there by all who meet the condi-*- 
tions of search. 

Discussion is had as to the truthfulness of consciousness. 
There is no ground for such discussion, since the discus- 
sion itself involves the thing doubted. Nothing can be bet- 
ter known than a fact of consciousness, since nothing can 
be known save through such a fact. Consciousness per- 
vades all knowing, all thinking, distrust equally with trust, 
denial with affirmation. No man ever does doubt, nor can 
he philosophically doubt, the existence of a present fact of 
mind. To do so would rob language of all meaning. The 
only way in which such a dispute becom.es possible is by 
wrongly regarding consciousness as a faculty, giving direct 
testimony to certain things, instead of something involved 
in the very fact of feeling, knowing, making them what they 
are, and, therefore, never present except through veritable, 
and, for the instant at least, undeniable, feeling and know- 
ing. Whether the thing known has an independent exist- 
ence, or the thing thought is correct, are quite other ques- 
tions. The truth of the testimony of one or more of our 
faculties to the various things declared by them is a scepti- 
cism by one step less central and less absurd than the dis- 
trust of consciousness. In this there is no show of ration- 
ality. There is involved in the one act an affirmation and 
denial of the same thing. 

§ 2. The facts of mind are confined then to the field of con- 
sciousness, and there they are to be sought. In this search, 
as has been often observed, there are peculiar difficulties. 
It is with most an unusual efi'ort of mind to direct attention 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 1 9 

to interior phenomena. External objects have been the 
chief subjects of consideration, and to turn the sight of the 
mind on itself is an unfamiliar and delicate process. It is 
like an effort to reveal to the eye itself, its own chambers, 
by casting in light and by adroit reflection. 

Neither are the several phases of mind observed as trans- 
piring, but as remembered. In the very act of thinking, 
the mind is so occupied with the subject matter of thought 
as not to make the process itself the object of attention. 
Now memory is at best but a dim and obscure vision, and 
especially so of internal states, which less draw the mind's 
eye than the objects and facts which are the occasion of 
them. If natural science were to proceed by the memory 
of things, seen at periods more or less remote, its progress 
would be comparatively uncertain^Nor can the phenomena 
of mind be restored perfectly at pleasure, and thus the 
recollection of them freshened. This is more possible in 
thinking than in feeling and volition ; yet even in thought, 
for its natural and full flow in a given direction, the mind 
must be disengaged from conflicting states and considera- 
tions, and be left to the unobserved and spontaneous action 
of the associations and impulses peculiar to the mental 
movement. 

This inability to hold directly the state considered before 
the mind, as the plant or mineral is watched and retained 
by the eye, is connected with another difficulty, that no one 
can join us in our investigation with the directness and cer- 
tainty which pertain to other inquiries. The object before 
the mind of each observer is hidden from the other, may 
not be of exactly the same character, nor looked at in the 
same direction. This confusion of objects and observa- 
tions is most perplexing. It is as if the eye were turned a 
little askance, and the movement and the blow, therefore, 
directed at the shadow or image before it, and not at the 
very thing itself Much skill and time are thus consumed 



20 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

between different observers in drawing attention to exactly 
the same facts. They often, through the deceptive effect of 
agreeing words, seem to have attained this result, when they 
have not attained it, and thus fall into inextricable confu- 
sion and contradiction. The feebleness of direction and 
construction is akin to that experienced, when, by the sense 
of touch alone, groping in the darkness, we strive to under- 
stand the parts, proportions and relations of even a familiar 
room. 

It is also incident to this search of consciousness, that no 
one observes more than the phenomena of his own mind, 
and those too of a comparatively recent period. It is diffi- 
cult, therefore, to determine how far a peculiar balance of 
faculties, as individual habits and associations, may have 
modified the mind's action, giving prominence to certain 
forms and connections of thought, and obscuring others. 
This fact also embarrasses us in deciding how far the mind's 
later convictions are due to protracted association, and how 
far to native, inherent tendencies or powers. Is the nor- 
mal, adult mind in its forms of action the fruit of growth, 
or are these forms native and indispensable to it ? The con- 
sciousness of the child or of the savage, so far as these 
questions may there seem to find an experimental answer, 
is beyond our exploration. 

Another embarrassment in philosophy, though not pecu- 
liar to it, is the blended way in which its facts are presented. 
Not only do thought, feeling, volition unite in one state, 
diverse and conflicting feelings struggle for the master}', 
and, in the simplest judgments, are interwoven perception, 
, memory, reasoning, imagination, intuition, and the subtile 
effects of association, rendering analysis a difficult, yet an 
indispensable condition of success. Separation of this 
obscure character, with phenomena in themselves evanes- 
cent and fluctuating, requires the utmost skill and tension 
of mind. 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 21 

Another obstacle to success to be mentioned are the pecu- 
liar deficiencies of language in this department. Language, 
always an essential, is here a chief instrument, of investiga- 
tion. It is the precision of the word employed, that separ- 
ates and holds fast the faculty, element, or relation desig- 
nated. In natural science, objects exist apart, though not 
named, and hence do not lose their identity, are not so 
merged in the ebb and flow of shifting phenomena as to 
escape all obsers^ation. The very sense of existence is 
largely due in mental facts to a clear, specific, generally 
recognized name ; since we handle the states of philosophy 
exclusively through their names, and without these, readily 
lose all traces of them. Moreover these names are applied 
somewhat in the dark. It is by description and suggestion 
that we are taught what the internal states are to which given 
words are set apart. The word is the same, but the inter- 
nal fact which explains it is, in every single case, different, 
that is lies in a different mind, and must be hit on as the 
thing meant by the sagacityof that mind. We are as one who 
puts together a complicated machine by a printed descrip- 
tion, and directions before him. Careful observation is 
required to determine the parts referred to, and failing of 
this, all is confusion. Yet in this illustration the parts are 
fixed, separate, with a permanent, independent existence ; 
while the parts of a complex, mental state admit of various 
divisions, or may disappear altogether, like some rivet in 
the .dust of the shop. To attach words, therefore, to their 
objects ; to make the two so that there shall be no escape 
for either, is a delicate and uncertain process. The ambi- 
guity of words embarrasses all forms of statement and reason- 
ing, but is never elsewhere the source of so much idle dis- 
cussion and fruitless inquir}- as in philosophy. 

A further obstacle presented by language is, that it comes 
to mental phenomena saturated with the imagery of the 
external world. Words are born amid sensible facts, and 



22 . PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

thence transferred to the mind. They come, therefore, to 
this new service with the images and associations acquired 
in the old. They subserve a popular, familiar use only the 
more aptly for this reason. It is when they are made the 
subject of careful analysis, when they are treated as the 
exact expression of the thing named, that their physical root 
and relations reveal themselves disastrously. The mind 
reaching this interior analogical thread of interpretation is 
pleased by it, and overlooks the fact, that investigation is 
thus sure to be led astray ; to be turned entirely from true 
mental phenomena, and to be sent wandering among their 
shadows and reflections in the external world. Thus, from 
the very beginning, every discussion concerning liberty has 
been embarrassed, and in most instances has miscarried, 
through the application to motives and desires, in a figura- 
tive sense, of words begotten amid the necessary connec- 
tions of physical things. These half-reclaimed servants, 
when closely questioned, have betrayed their low relations, 
and in so doing have lost to liberty its high, ethereal form. 
Like its household, it has been thought to be mud-born. 

The last difficulty is allied to this, and arises from the 
uniqueness of the department. It refuses to receive illus- 
trations from the analogies of matter ; or rather it refuses to 
accept as the exact types and counterparts of its own facts 
and dependencies those of a realm at the farthest possible 
remove , from it, at the very nadir of the sphere of being. 
Yet the mind, familiar with certain processes, certain forms 
of explanation, certain couplings of thought, is uneasy and 
dissatisfied with all others, is only content when it has put 
new matter under the old law, the new wine into the old 
bottles. Unable to hold it in these stiff, inflexible case- 
ments, such a notion as that of the infinite perplexes and 
vexes the mind, simply because it is not the finite, and 
thus stands opposed to its other forms of knowledge, and is 
excluded from them. Equally is it annoyed with liberty 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 



23 



. for not yielding to some analogy of necessity, some inter- 
pretation drawn from the physical world ; for not taking 
upon itself, in a subtiler way, the iron-bound connections 
of matter ; and with right, because it will insist on being 
final, and refuses to be merged in any other form of good 
whatever. To accept a new department — so new and so 
novel as this of mind when contrasted with that of matter — * 
as new, to lay aside prepossessions, and to commence again 
with simple intuitive convictions, the axioms of this field, 
involves a sore conflict, and the more a conflict in propor- 
tion as the inquirer has gained great victories of knowledge 
in the material world, and dwelt long amid its methods of 
action. This is probably the gravest of all the obstacles to 
philosophy, and the more so because it is generally entirely 
overlooked or forgotten. V 

§ 3. While the phenomena of mind are to be obtained 
directly, and only directly, from the mind itself, there are 
very important indirect auxiliaries of inquiry. Language is 
one of the prominent of these aids. Language, as the pro- 
duct of the mind, as the external, visible trace of the mind's 
movements, reveals of course the forms of its action, and, 
in the designations of mental phenomena, a part at least of 
the facts of the interior world. On disputed questions of 
analysis, also, the inherent, spontaneous, general convic- 
tions of men are betrayed by the words they use ; and a dis- 
tinct designation is so far proof of the general recognition of 
a distinct idea. That certain words are always and every- 
where floating in popular speech indicates that the thoughts 
of men find rest in them, something valid, sufficient to 
steady and sustain the mind as for the moment it lights 
upon them. These traces of the mind, indicating its own 
spontaneous convictions, that which is actually woven into 
the web of its thinking and feeling, must be included in 
every sound theory of philosophy, and furnish the sugges- 
tions for its construction. 



24 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Of the same nature exactly, though not as easily accessi- 
ble or explicit, are the facts of daily life and of history. 
The shadow of the mind is cast upon them, and we may 
reason thence to the powers and capacities they indicate. 
A theor}' which utterly confounds, as do some metaphysical 
theories, all the convictions of daily life, and makes the 
facts of history and those of philosophy rest on utterly 
diverse conceptions, so much so that no region seems so 
startling, remote or even preposterous as this metaphysi- 
cal dream-land to the very beings who are said to inhabit it, 
by that fact reflects on itself extreme improbability. History 
must be felt to be, and found to be, the very shadow, the 
close and intimate reflection of that inner life which is 
revealed to us by mental science. 

Another aid to philosophical investigation is found in an 
inquiry into the instruments of the mind, the physical 
organs which it uses ; and into the incipient and rudiment- 
ary development of intellectual action shown by animals. 
We are thus able to give more correct weight to the purely 
physical element, and to separate more intelligently the 
lower, nervous, and instinctive forms of animal life from 
true, mental powers. While not underestimating the sec- 
ondar}' and inferential aid thus to be rendered to philoso- 
phy, we think that extravagant and absurd expectations, of 
the results of investigations primarily physical, have been 
entertained. One might look at a brain till he was blind, 
and, without the interpretation of the facts of consciousness 
obtained by introspection, his observations, as initiating 
a science of mind, would not be of the least avail. To 
^suppose that the divisions of mental faculties can be found 
either on the outside or inside of a skull is preposterous. 
Passing the experimental proof so fully given by Hamilton, 
that no such connection as that sometimes claimed between 
cer^s-in powers and certain localities of the brain can be 
shown to exist, we insist, that even if the fact of such a con- 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 25 

nection were proved, we should still as much as ever need 
an independent philosophy derived from consciousness. 
These bumps are not labeled in the human subject. They 
contain in themselves no suggestion of the purpose sub- 
served by the portion of the brain beneath them. The 
observer must have an antecedent idea of certain mental 
powers, and be ready to attribute one or other of these to 
the prominence under his lingers. Afterward he may con- 
firm the act by observation. This first condition, however, 
failing him, the bump under discussion might as well be a 
protuberance on a potato as a projection on a human 
skull. The one, in and of itself, as a mere prominence on 
a round body, makes no more declaration of ideality, 
benevolence, language, than the other. Suppose we have 
made from consciousness a wrong division of powers, what 
is there to hinder us from transferring these errors to our 
map of the cranium .? Nothing ; they will rather inevitably 
thus reappear. The chart that is to guide us must be made 
out before we can begin to outline and number and name the 
divisions of our plaster bust, and equally also before we can at- 
tribute a faculty to a locality in the living subject. The absurd 
classification of phrenologists ; such faculties as combative- 
ness, philoprogenitiveness, secretiveness, are sufficient proof, 
if farther proof were wanting, of this inability to find the 
invisible action of the mind in the visible form of its instru- 
ment. All the aid given to philosophy by an external fact 
is inferential, not direct ; and that invisible faculty or force 
which is thus to be reached, on which our conclusion is to 
land, must be given, in the only possible knowledge of its 
nature, by consciousness. The analysis of mental phe- 
iiomena shows, that firmness is the complex result of various, 
and of diff'erent, mental states, and no locating of a sup- 
posed faculty so called in one or another portion of the 
liead can alter, or throw light on, these facts. The single- 
ness of the name and locality imparts no new singleness to 



26 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the mind's action, marks no division of its faculties. The 
invisible cannot be seen through the visible. Each must 
be determined independently, and the connections between 
the two established by experience. It would be as rational 
to suppose that the letters contained in the word zo/// should 
of themselves convey to every mind the notion of that power, 
as to suppose that a prominent eye should reveal the exis- 
tence of a faculty called language. Regarding conscious- 
ness, then, as the only field of the science, whether reached 
inferentially, or directly under the interpretation of the light 
it itself furnishes, we pass to the general divisions of mental 
phenomena. 

§ 4. The leading divisions of the faculties of the mind, so 
generally accepted since the time of .Kant as scarcely to 
demand further explanation or defence, are those of know- 
ing, feeling, willing ; the intellect, the emotions and the 
will. The desires are by Kant and Hamilton included with 
the will. They belong rather with the feelings. Desire is 
employed to designate a state of feeling toward a certain 
object or objects. We find things differently, related to our 
happiness ; we cease, therefore, to be indifferent to them ; 
one object or line of action gets a hold upon us; we are drawn 
toward it, and this continued state we call a desire. Lan- 
guage sustains this decision. Desires are constantly spoken 
of as feelings, never as thoughts or volitions ; the words in 
the first case are used interchangeably, not so in the second. 
We apply the same adjectives to them as to the feelings. 
We say of a desire as of an emotion, that it is strong or 
weak, consistent or changeable, intense or feeble ; and 
sometimes, as in the case of avarice, speak of it as becom- 
ing a passion. Our desires, also, may be directly opposed 
to our volitions. We greatly covet a certain possession, but 
our pride constrains us not to ask for it. We wish the 
pleasure of a given action, but through fear determine not 
to perform it. A state of desire, like every state of feeling, 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. Z'J 

is antecedent to volition, and may or may not find play in 
subsequent choices. As a desire it may arise and pass 
away emotionally, like envy or jealousy or sympathy or love, 
and find no expression in action, awaken not the will at all. 
It may either meet with acceptance by the mind, or suffer 
rejection by it. Desire, then, should be included in the 
field of the emotions, where it arises, and spends its power. It » 
does not, in the fact that it gives occasion to the will for 
activity in providing for its gratification, differ from other 
feelings. These also, as long as they last, are springs of 
volition. 

§ 5. An attempt has been made to farther divide the 
department of will, into choice and volition. A color of 
plausibility is given to this division by distinguishing be- 
tween initiatory volition and executive volition. The first 
is termed choice, the second volition. When two diverse 
lines of action are contemplated, and the mind is as yet 
undecided between them, the desires have free play, the 
sense of moral obligation is present, and the conflict 
3„^.- ._3Avajts_j,_definite_ setlement by a choice between them, a 
fixed determination in favor of one or the other. We some- 
times, at this point, use the word choice out of the meaning 
which should attach to it as pertaining to volition. Thus we 
say, ' ' My choice would be this line of effort, " though we 
actually accept and pursue another. Choice is thus made 
to express a state of desire, not one of will. The word 
choice, however, in its use in the third department of men- 
tal phenomena, expresses an explicit termination of all 
vacillation, a close of deliberation by an act of will in favor 
of this and in rejection of that. 

The case thus being closed by a specific and peculiar • 
act, there remains a longer or shorter series of efforts to 
be made in reaching the object proposed, in accomplishing 
the career marked out. There are no definite limits in an- 
alysis to these intermediate acts. Our division may extend 



28 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

to each muscular movement, or il may stop short with each 
specific undertaking. I propose to build a house; the 
number of distinct physical and intellectual efforts involved 
in the project are indefinitely great ; and while they are all 
under the control of the will, we hardly have occasion to 
place a distinct volition back of each one of them. The 
will has the power, by a few explicit volitions, to direct the 
current of the vital powers in a single channel of expendi- 
ture. A walk once entered on, the movement becomes in 
a large measure unconscious, and the mind is left at liberty 
to pursue any line of action it prefers. The voluntary and 
involuntary play of physical members differ not so much 
in the manner in which they are sustained, as in the way 
in which they are initiated, and in the fact that the one 
is momentarily open to modification, and arrest. 

The distinction between a choice and a volition, then, 
seems to be found in their position in reference to an end, 
rather than in their intrinsic character. The one is initia- 
tory of a line of action ; the other sustains and com- 
pletes it. The one is primary, the other subsidiary. The 
one is determinative and governing, the other executive. 
The first gives character to an action, the second sustains 
and develops that character. The one is immediately free, 
the other mediately so, through its dependence on the first. 
The division thus sinks into a classification of volitions, 
and removes neither choice nor volition from the phenom- 
ena of the will. Choice, as an act of will, does not in- 
clude the deliberation and the play of feeling from which 
it proceeds ; but only that final act by which they are 
brought to a close, and the powers of the mind made to 
unite in a line of effort, Volitions are the secondary im- 
pulses of will, by which its primary impulses are com- 
pleted; they are the subdivisions and prolongations of that 
power, which is born of choice. The ball is driven in a 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 29 

given line, but receives accessions of force, and changes of 
direction, as the exigencies require. 

§ 6. The relation of consciousness to the three forms of 
mental action is the same. Sir William Hamilton seems 
to have regarded its connection with knowing as somewhat 
peculiar. While he speaks of it as the condition of all 
mental phenomena, he says, "Those of the first class, the 
phenomena of knowledge, are indeed nothing but con- 
sciousness in various relations." The complete and ex- 
pansive statement is rather that consciousness is the condi- 
tion, and equally the condition, of all mental acts and 
states. It is merely through a deficiency, or peculiar use 
of language, that it seems to be more intimately connected 
with knowing than with feeling. To know a thing, and to 
be conscious of it, are used as interchangeable expres- 
sions ; and, hence, we have come to regard consciousness 
as a kind of knowing, or as an act of knowing, and not 
merely and purely the condition of such an act, that which 
permits knowing to be knowing. It is not strange, that a 
constant condition of an act should, in language, take the 
place of the act itself Through this interplay of the words 
conscious and know, we are able to say, ' ' We know that 
we feel." " We know that we will ;" though we can with 
only doubtful propriety say, ' ' We feel that we know. " ' ' We 
feel that we will," and cannot at all say, " We will that we 
know. " ' ' We will that we feel. " This use arises, we ap- 
prehend, through a peculiar connection in the language 
employed of consciousness with knowing, and thus a 
transfer of the word know to both feeling and volition. 
Consciousness is no more an act of knowing than it is one 
of feeling, and is a condition in exactly the same sense and 
way for the one as for the other. We know in conscious- 
ness, we feel in consciousness, we will in consciousness ; 
and consciousness is neither an act of knowing, nor of 
feeling, nor of willing, but a condition of them all. Con- 



30 - PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

sciousness is not a something, a faculty, a light, which re 
veals acts, independently of knowing, feeling, willing, to 
the mind ; but that which makes an act of knowing to be 
one of knowing, of feeling to be one of feeling, and voli- 
tion to stand forth as volition. Mind, by virtue of its own 
nature as mind, does and suffers what it does and suffers, 
consciously under this simple, peculiar, and inexplicable 
condition of being aware of its own acts, a condition which 
is no more allied to one act than to another, to one state 
than to another ; but is common to each in its indivisible 
nature. A feeling is not a feeling and a knowing that we 
feel ; a volition a willing and a knowing that we will, but 
simply and singly an emotion and a choice, under the es- 
sential condition of such acts, to wit, consciousness. 

§ 7. Two allied inquiries arise in this division of mental 
phenomena. Are there any mental phenomena below or out- 
side of consciousness ? Are the states of mind, the acts ot 
consciousness, consecutive or intermittent.? Sir William 
Hamilton, and many other metaphysicians, recognize un- 
conscious modifications of mind, we think without suf- 
ficient proof. The conclusion is too purely conjectural to 
command our consent. Mental and physical phenomena 
are cut broadly and deeply apart by the fact, that the one 
class transpires exclusively in consciousness, and the other 
as exclusively out of consciousness. The last are actual or 
possible objects of some organ of perception, are some- 
where located in space, and thus open to the outside 
action of mind, its action through senses ; the first are 
within the mind, evincing their existence exclusively by 
their effects in consciousness. Not to exhibit anywhere, 
to any actual or supposable organ of sense, any phenomena, 
is, in the physical world, not to exist. Existence is affirmed 
only on the ground of some effects, however subtile, in 
sensible objects, and directly or indirectly in organs of per- 
ception. We never hear of physical facts above or below 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 3 1 

space, beyond all possible tests, all possible forms of per- 
ception ; since such phenomena would be utterly unable to 
manifest this existence, to give any proof to it. The very 
notion of ph3'^sical being arises from that of physical effects, 
under suitable circumstances open to observation. Thus 
also should mental phenomena be regarded. There is 
likewise only one known field for these — consciousness. 
All, aside from physical facts, that transpires outside of 
this, is necesarily unknowable. An alledged fact, which 
is to be found anywhere as a fact, has but two avenues 
through which it can make itself known, the senses and 
consciousness. These are the sole means by which we 
take cognizance of any class of phenomena. To assert, 
therefore, the existence of other modifications or changes 
than those which respond to these two methods of knowing, 
is to affirm some third field, wherein events transpire whose 
nature is utterly unknown to us, and of whose being we 
can at most have only an hypothetical and inferential know- 
ledge. 

Some strong, some imperative reason should be given 
for the acceptance of phenomena — phenomena, not the 
basis merely of phenomena — utterly unknown, and from 
the nature of the case unknowable. By what principle are 
those unknown modifications, if thought to exist, classified 
as mental facts ? Something it would seem should be re- 
vealed more distinctly as to their character, before they are 
assigned to this class rather than to that of physical facts. 
If these unknown modifications are acts or states of mind, 
are in any way phenomena of mind, we ought to have pro- 
vision made for them in our classification of mental facts. 
The division would then run thus : the phenomena of 
knowing, of feeling, of willing, and a fourth class differ- 
ent from any of these, and composed of certain unknowa- 
ble states, acts, conditions, or whatever you please to call 
them, of which we have no direct consciousness, and can 



32 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

say nothing by way of explanation. States, then, of mind 
may transpire of which the mind itself knows nothing, 
and which furnish, neither in the field of thought or of forces, 
any direct proof of their existence. The argument for 
their being is thus of the most naked and inferential char- 
acter. 

If it be said that these modifications are modifications 
of the mind itself, and not of the nature of actions, of phe- 
nomena, I think it must be granted, that they are thus con- 
ceived wholly under the analogy of material changes, and 
that if they are shown to be, and to belong anywhere, it is 
in the physical, and not the mental world — in the brain, 
the instrument of the mind, and not in the very mind itself. 
In this last, we know, and can know, of no organic changes. 
Its own acts, states, constitute the sum of our knowledge 
concerning it. Nor are we hereby rid of these alleged 
modifications as phenomena ; nor of the consequent need 
of giving some clue to their mode of existence. 

We are thus brought to the fundamental difiTiculty of this 
view, that it tends to confound the broad distinction be- 
tween mental and physical facts, — especially between men- 
tal facts and those of physiology, those which pertain to 
the brain and nervous system. No matter what relations 
exist in the brain itself, or what changes take place in it, 
an observation and knowledge of these, is no part of men- 
tal science, and do not necessarily, do not alone, give a clue 
or explanation to any one of its facts. The organic func- 
tions and dependencies of the brain, are matters of as dis- 
tinct, and purely physical knowledge, as those of the liyer, 
• and no changes here can reveal to us the nature of a men- 
tal state, or of the powers peculiar to the mind. We can 
no more find the mind in the brain — because this is the 
organ of thought, than we can the life in the heart, because 
this is the chief organ of life ; or than the ancients could 
have searched it successfull}' for the aftections, because they 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 33 

regarded it as the seat of the feelings. Listen for a mo- 
ment to the words of one of these modern philosophers, 
who reject consciousness as the field of mental science, 

"Not only is the actual process of the association of our 
ideas independent of consciousness, but that assimilation 
or blending of similar ideas, or of the like in different ideas ' 
by which general ideas are formed, is no way under the 
control or cognizance of consciousness. When the like 
in two perceptions is appropriated, while that in which 
they differ is neglected, it would seem to be an assimila- 
tive action of the nerve-cell, or cells of the brain, which, 
particularly modified by the first impression, have an at- 
traction or affinity for a like subsequent impression ; the 
cell so modified and so ministering takes to itself that which 
is suitable, and which it can assimilate or make of the same 
kind with itself, while it rejects for appropriation by other 
cells, that which is unlike and will not blend. " — Maudsley's 
Physiology and Pathology 0/ the Mind, p. 1 7. 

It is difficult to treat with respect explanations like these. 
Is the brain the only organ whose cells take to themselves 
"that which is suitable .?" that which they can make of the 
same kind with themselves .? Why then do not the liver, 
the kidneys think, and unite like things in thought, by re- 
semblance ? No one thing is more separate from another, 
than is cell-action from thought. To speak of the two as 
the same is to use words for ideas. Who, by observing 
the one, could come to a knowledge of the other.? One 
might watch at his leisure the operation of Morse's telegraph, 
and, unless his previous knowledge furnished him the so- 
lution, make nothing evident, but his own vacant mind. 
Yet the connection of this contrivance with language is fai 
more mechanical and obvious than that of the brain with 
thought. The affirmation of subconscious phenomena is 



34 ■ PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

especially objectionable as playing into materialistic phil- 
osophy, as confounding the distinction between physical and 
mental changes, and referring real or imaginary modifica- 
tions of the brain to the mind, as if the two were equiva- 
lent. 

But the views of Hamilton are not intentionally open to 
this objection ; let us briefly consider the reasons he gives 
for the acceptance of unconscious modifications of mind 
The first of these is the extraordinary power the mind some- 
times shows of recalling events, and even unintelligible 
sounds, as those of an unknown language, long after every 
trace of them seemed to have passed from the memory. ' ' Ex- 
tensive systems of knowledge may, in our ordinary state, lie 
latent in the mind beyond the sphere of consciousness and 
the will ; but in certain extraordinary states of organism, 
may again come forward into the light, and even engross 
the mind to the exclusion of its every day possessions." 

In this argument we simply meet the old difficulty. 
How does the mind remember ? How does it store up 
knowledge with no apparent store-house, accumulate men- 
tal vigor with no mental muscle wherein to lodge it, gain 
sharpness, precision, ease, with no underlying structure, in 
which those qualities may be thought of as inhering? 

That memory shows unusual power under certain abnor- 
mal conditions of mind does not essentially alter the char- 
acter of that power, nor introduce new states into the prob- 
lem. Physical strength is not different in kind when ex- 
hibited in an astonishing degree by a maniac, from what 
it is in ordinary states of body. An ordinary act of recol- 
lection involves the whole question, involves neither more 
nor less than an extraordinary one. These queries — How 
does the mind remember ? How does it subjectively ac- 
quire and retain power ? — we must submit are unanswer- 
able ; questions which receive no light whatever from any 
supposed modifications of some supposed substance of the 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 35 

mind. If such modifications were granted, we should un- 
derstand not in the least how they were equivalent to acts 
of memory, or productive of them — we should simply 
have two inexplicable things instead of one. The tenden- 
cy to ask and answer such questions arises from the physi- 
cal world, where we expect no change of powers without 
some of structure. The early solution given to this prob- 
lem of memory, that certain films escape from objects, and 
are laid away in a secret store-house of the mind, is just as 
good philosophically as the latest ; and sprang from exactly 
the same false tendency to carry the analogies of matter in- 
to mind. The form of mental action is not revealed to us, 
and we have no clue to it except this false one of reasoning 
from things and processes totally unlike those of mind ; 
bringing the interpretation of physical phenomena to intel- 
lectual facts. We reject the explanation of mental power 
furnished by unconscious modifications of mind, because 
it is really no explanation, making the subject not the least 
clearer ; because these modifications themselves are wholly 
hypothetical ; and because they are inferred by analogy, 
fi-om a field remote from the subject in hand, and alien to 
it. 

The second proof offered, is allied to the first. It is 
drawn in like manner from the analogies of the physical 
world. The minimum object which the eye can perceive 
may be conceived as divided into halves ; neither of these 
will be objects of perception, yet each of them must make 
a distinct, though unconscious impression on the organ of 
vision, in order that the conjoint effect may be perceptible. 
We have, then, the first conscious state in sensation secured 
by effects themselves unrecognized. Hence springs the 
inference, a conscious state of feeling or thought may be 
preceded by unconscious states as its conditions. We ob- 
ject to the analogy. The eye is a physical organ, lying be- 
tween the object and the perceptive power. There may be 



36 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

in it, action too slight to reach the mind. In the case 
which this fact is brought to illustrate, there is no analogous 
middle term between the mind and its own action. The 
question is, whether its own, its veritable, acts and states 
are always known to the mind ? Now these actions are 
not occasioned in some intermediate substance by a for- 
eign cause, and taken thence by consciousness, or overlooked 
by it, as the case may be. There is no such medium 
between the mind and its own acts. External, physical con- 
ditions, there doubtless are ; but these constitute no part 
of the mind itself Keepingtheinquiry itself clearly in view, 
Does the mind know all that the mind itself does, all that 
transpires in it.? it will be seen that the above analogy 
casts no light upon the subject. If the theory is, that exter- 
nal forces act on the substance of the mind, or, to put the 
same thing in appropriate specific terms, that nervous energy 
animates the brain, and that a certain amount of this in- 
fluence is necessary to constitute thought, and does con- 
stitute it ; while less amounts, though of the same nature, 
transpire without consciousness, then indeed there is an an- 
alogy in the cases, and the argument too so far holds ; but 
we have reached out and out materialism. The theory on 
this basis offers no more explanation of the problem. How 
does a pure act of judgment or of memory take place, 
than would be found in the study of a piece of mechan- 
ism, a power-loom or an electrometer. The brain is in- 
deed more immediately the condition of the mind's action 
than any other part of the body ; but the brain, the body, 
every machine and instrument it uses, are the conditions to 
one or more of its activities, and no one of them constitutes 
the very substance, the very nature of those activities. 

A third argument is found in acquired dexterities, as 
those of the equilibrist, or the musician. It is asked : 
How shall the separate acts involved in the rapid perform- 
ance of the musician, each of which was originally preced- 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 3/ 

ed by an act of volition, be explained, when established 
skill has banished from sight this directive power of the 
mind. One philosopher answers, ' ' The movements of mind 
remain, but take place too rapidly for distinct observation 
and memory." A second replies, "they remain, but remain 
as acts or changes below consciousness." Before we at- 
tempt to judge between these opinions, it may be well to 
inquire for the proof, that these impulses of mind remain 
at all. We believe that the supposed difficulty arises from 
overlooking the nature of the connection of the mind and 
of the body. Much of the nervous, executive play of the 
body, never passes under the cognizance of the mind, does 
not penetrate the region of consciousness, is purely auto- 
matic. Some of this action, on the other hand, which is 
usually self-sufficient, is yet open to the arrest and modi- 
fication of the mind. Of this character is the process of 
breathing. Few will claim that an act of mind is back of 
each inspiration and expiration, though we can at pleasure 
shorten or deepen, quicken or retard the movement. I 
may find myself breathing in a manner that is inadequate 
or injurious. I may for weeks laboriously strive to enlarge 
and deepen the play of the lungs. I may succeed, and the 
improved method become habitual with me. Will it be 
claimed, that henceforward my inspirations are all voluntary, 
each preceded by an act of mind ? I think not. The im- 
proved process is as automatic as the previous one, and no 
more requires subconscious mental acts for its explana- 
tion. 

There are still other physical movements more constant- 
ly voluntary, more rarely involuntary. We thus speak o f 
them as voluntary acts, and seem to regard them as under 
the exclusive impulse of the will. There is no good reason 
for this. The fact that I walk whither I will, and modify 
ray movement as I will, is not a sufficient reason for requir- 
ing a distinct, mental act, conscious or unconscious, back 



38 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

of each muscular movement made in passing over each rod 
of the road I am pursuing. The will, as it were, by one vo- 
lition, belts the automatic powers, and these run on till they 
are again arrested or redirected. If the play of the nervous 
energy to and from the nervous centres is sufficient to secure 
motion without consciousness of any mental action what- 
ever, as in the case of the heart, is it not equally capable 
of continuing a motion the will has established.'* If we an- 
alyze each voluntary motion, so called, into the most single, 
simple, muscular movements of which it is composed, and 
place a mental act back of each, we have an absurdly com- 
plex result, and one not in the least testified to by con- 
sciousness, nor required by the known conditions of the 
problem. All the powers of life are not mental, and a 
great share of the labor of living is done by forces with a 
strength and movement more or less, as the case may be, 
independent of intellectual control. 

In acquired dexterities, volitions are, as in the case of re- 
spiration, required for a time to establish and confirm the 
automatic movement, but this, once settled, is able to sus- 
tain itself by a purely vital power, a play of nervous ener- 
gies without direct or constant support of the will. The 
difficulty of the question seems to have arisen from not 
marking the degree in which vital phemomenaare indepen- 
dent of mental action. 

A last argument for unconscious modifications of mind, 
is found in the association of ideas. Links of association, 
it is said, are frequently omitted. The mind passes from 
number one to number five or eight in a train of connec- 
ttions without distinctly recalling the intervening steps. 
How does this happen ? Does the mind move through 
the entire series, though too rapidly for memory ? or does 
the unbroken thread lie below consciousness, there traversed 
by the mind ? The last query is thought to indicate the 
true solution. But is there any sufficient reason for shut- 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 59 

ting US up to these alternatives ? Is it so certain that the 
mind never makes a leap, that it cannot associate five 
with eight directly, omitting altogether six and seven ? 
Is not this also an act and a method of association, as much 
so as that which originally united the ideas marked five, six, 
seven and eight, respectively? The very fact that these four 
have thus stood together, is a new and a second law of 
connection, and may at times supersede the first law. Six 
scholars stand before me in the recitation room. This fact 
of itself, no matter by what previous connections occasioned, 
is a fresh ground of association, and may cause the memory 
on the presence of one, to recall any of the remaining 
five. 

Take the case of acquired meanings. A word may have 
stolen from application to application along an obscure path 
of resemblances, of subtile connections, till it has reached 
the twentieth meaning. How many of these successive uses 
any one mind shall recall in employing the word will de- 
pend in part on knowledge, and in part on the frequency 
with which the word recurs. 

The last meaning may be the only one suggested to the 
majority of minds in the majority of cases, though the pre- 
vious ones and their connections may be known to them, 
in whole or in part. The word becomes at length a liter- 
al term in its twentieth meaning, attached in this significa- 
tion directly to its object ; though there lie between the first 
use and the present application nineteen images, each of 
which has been carried in the imagination, imparting to the 
word a figurative force for a greater or less length of time. 
. What is to hinder the mind's going cross-lots ? Nothing : 
association itself prepares the way for it. 

The explications ofiered by unconscious mental acts in- 
volve facts more obscure than those explained. This 
movement under the surface of consciousness, is in itself a 
most perplexing riddle, a strange something we know not 



40 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

what Nor, if it is granted, do we at all understand how it 
can, or does change its nature, and suddenly issue in a 
movement within consciousness. The supplied links in this 
theory are of an unintelligible nature, and do their work in 
an unintelligible way. The whole result is more perplex- 
ing and obscure than if we accept the naked phenomena, 
and suppose the mind to pass from idea to idea, now by a 
more direct, now by a more circuitous route, able to do the 
first, because it has done the second. The facts presented 
in consciousness are more manageable by themselves 
than when surrounded by suppositions, which involve phe- 
nomena unknown and unknowable. The dip of the 
thread of connections below consciousness is a loss of it for 
all practical and explanatory purposes in chaos and night 
If it re-appears in the realm of knowledge, it comes like a 
ghost from Hades, in a mysterious method and an inexplic- 
able guise. 

The connection of this idea of a subconscious region 
with materialism plainly appears in Lewes' Physiology of 
Common Life. He affirms: "that all nervous centres 
in action, give rise to Sensation, and thus furnish elements 
to the general Consciousness. " Thus we are made to be con- 
scious of all the muscular and involuntary movements 
that take place in the body. This strange affirmation is 
thrown into the very teeth of consciousness itself, moment- 
arily affirming the reverse truth to us all, on the purely a 
priori grounds, first, that a similarity of ganglionic structure 
in these nerve-centers implies similarity of office ; and se- 
cond, that constant, physical impressions must be made 
upon them, and hence, must enter consciousness. 

' ' Every such excitement of the sensitive organism must 
be a sensation. These sensations will neccessarily be very 
various, as the organs excited, and the exciting causes, are 
various ; but they must all be sensations, they are all active 
states ot the general property of sensibility. £^rgo, they 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 4^ 

must all be elements of consciousness. " Thus this author 
so thoroughly identifies physical with mental states, that 
having established the first, he out-faces the mind itself, and 
declares that they must be consciously found in its record. 
This is only a bolder movement in the one general direc- 
tion, since it pretty much annihilates the distinction between 
conscious and subconscious phenomena, and brushes light- 
ly aside any testimony the mind itself may offer, as to any- 
thing that is, or is not, passing within it. If there is any 
mockery, any ridicule of consciousness more extreme than 
every other, it is this affirmation, that every peristaltic mo- 
tion of the intestines is a phenomenon of mind. So one mind 
at least classifies its activities. 

• § 8. We have dwelt at length on consciousness as includ- 
ing the entire range of mental phenomena, because thus 
only can we adequately define the field of mental science, 
and keep it forever distinct from all physical inquiries. 
Physiological facts are of incalculable interest and value, 
but are perfectly distinct from philosophy. Each branch 
is capable of independent development, nay, must receive 
it, and neither is as obscure as the connections between the 
two. Only by a double light on either hand, the mind be- 
ing made known to itself, and the brain and nervous system 
being carefully inquired into, can we hope to trace obscure- 
ly and slowly the connections, or rather the dependencies of 
the physical and spiritual worlds ; even then reaching 
everywhere ultimate facts beyond our solution. Metaphysics, 
with all its erratic and fanciful reasonings, never gave ex- 
planations more absurd and inadequate than those some- 
times rendered of intellectual phenomena from a study of 
physical organisms. The assertion that the brain secretes 
thought, is the crude form out of which, with more subtile 
and obscure phraseology, these impotent reasonings from 
matter to mind arise. 

This premature and preposterous union of the two realms, 



42 PRINCIPLES OF PSCHOLOGT. 

or rather absorption of the one by the other, is greatly aid- 
ed by the admission of a region below consciousness, a re- 
gion in some way attached to the mental field, though not 
fairly located in it. The mind thus allies in conception its 
phenomena to those of the physical world, taking place un- 
der a blind play of forces, and then readily unites them to 
nervous and cerebral action. Hypothetical, unlocated, un- * 
knowable facts are thus made to furnish a passage between 
the two departments; to give inlet to lower physical causes, 
whose service it ostensibly is to explain, but which really 
obscure and destroy, intellectual and spiritual powers. 

We reject this region of subconsciousness as unexplored 
and inexplorable, either by the inner or the outer eye ; as 
furnishing no ground for induction or safe deduction ; as 
necessarily a region of myth and fancies, offering no solid 
explanations which can be subjected to any form of experi- 
ence. Let positive science give us its positive facts, estab- 
lished with sufficient inquiry, located in the brain and as- 
sociated organisms — facts as material and sensible as 
those of brass or iron, oxygen and hydrogen, heat or elec- 
tricity, and as physical facts we will recognize them ; let 
philosophy declare what the common consciousness can ve- 
rify, and its staiements shall be accepted as at least of 
equal value and validity with those which creep into the 
mind through the eye and the ear ; but let neither form of 
investigation bring alleged facts from a region which it it- 
self puts beyond the entire range of our critical faculties. 
Consciousness presents a distinct, a complete and indepen- 
dent field. On it no purely physical inquiry can enter, 
and in it philosophy can lie intrenched beyond the power of 
any form of ignorant or jealous scepticism. The students 
of Positive Philosophy, ready to desecrate this sanctuary of 
our spiritual nature, will, like the blind men of Sodom, 
wear}' themselves in vain to find the door. 

Mental Science will also be aided, by this divorce of the 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 43 

unknown from the known, the conjectural from the estab- 
lished ; in bringing its own doctrines to a more decided 
test ; and in expelling some of those dogmas, which, un- 
intelligible, yet possible to a bold and blind faith, have 
hovered about it, and given it a superstitious, visionary, and 
unphilosophical appearance. Of this nature is the asser- 
tion, that one may sin below consciousness, or the belief * 
that sin is transmitted from parent to child. If all the acts 
and states of mind are conscious ones, then, of course, all 
moral phenomena must transpire in the light. 

§ 9. The second preliminary inquiry referred to — Is the 
mind always consciously active ? — is closely allied to the one 
now answered — Is the mind ever unconsciously modified ? 
A negative answer to the second inquiry would seem to pre- 
pare the way for a positive answer to the first. If no 
movement or modification or phenomena of mind tran- 
spire below the surface, then we should anticipate, that the 
continuous existence of the mind would be productive of 
continuous activity above the surface, and that some phase 
of thought, feeling, or volition would be ever transpiring. 
The second question of course contemplates a modification 
of mind in the nature of an action, or an induced change 
of state, and not at all the admitted fact, that the mind 
increases in power. The subjective method of this in- 
crease is beyond present explication ; we are simply not to 
figure it under a material form, as if it were a substantial 
change. If, on the other hand, we say with Sir William 
Hamilton, that there are unconscious modifications of 
mind, we have prepared the way for denying its constant, 
conscious activity ; since some moments of being, at least, 
would seem to be sufficiently accounted for by the transpiring 
of these subconscious facts, and the existence of such facts 
would prepare the way for their hypothetical occupation of 
the mind in periods of external repose. Yet, Sir William 



44- PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Hamilton answers this question, justly we believe, in the 
afl&rmative. The mind is always consciously active. 

The reason which most avails in bringing us to this con- 
clusion is one which will probably have little weight with 
most minds. It is of an a priori character. The only 
proof of existence is some form of phenomena. Exis- 
tence without phenomena is unevinced, unintelligible. 
Matter that should manifest neither active nor passive ef- 
fects anywhere, under any conditions, would cease to 
meet our idea of matter, would be non-existent. Now the 
sole known phenomena of mind are those of conscious- 
ness ; and to suppose a total arrest of these leaves the mind, 
for the interval, without the proof or the form of existence. 
We may figure, in some vague way, under the analogy of 
matter, some passive state or power as belonging to the 
mind, and maintaining for it a phenomenal existence dur- 
ing the hours of sleep ; but here again we are in the region 
of pure hypothesis. We know nothing of mind save as the 
source of certain activities, and if these are gone, the only 
grounds on which we ever predicated its existence are gone. 
To suppose it capable of existence in a passive state, is a pure 
supposition, altogether beyond knowledge, and made so 
easily tenable only by analogies, carelessly caught up from 
the physical world. We believe, therefore, in the constant 
activity of the mind, as the only state under which we know 
it at all, or, in consistency with what we do know of its na- 
ture, can at all conceive it. The notion of total rest leaves 
the mind as mind without any possible manifestation or 
proof of existence, to any being under any circumstances. 
■fThe only known phenomena of mind are removed, and 
with them pass away the evidence of its present being. 

Urging, however, no farther this consideration, we be- 
lieve the strictly inductive proof sufficient to render the con- 
clusion, that the mind is always active, at least probable. 
As it is dwelt on at length by Hamilton, we shall treat it 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 45 

briefly. The chief difficulty to be overcome in the affirma- 
tion, is the admitted fact, that the memory does not retain 
and report the movements of the mind in hours of sleep or 
of syncope. How strong is this objection? Much the larger 
share of the thoughts and the feelings of yesterday have en- 
tirely passed from the mind, and yet we readily believe in 
their existence. We have no doubt of the continuity 
of thought in our waking moments ; yet we arrive at the 
conclusion more from our present experience than because 
we can recall one in ten thousand of the feelings which have 
passed through the mind in the last dozen years. Now the 
impression of dreams, when these are known to have oc- 
curred, are of a much more evanescent character. At the 
very instant of waking, we may be able to recall them, and 
yet lose all hold on them in a few moments. We also 
know, that in proportion as sleep is sweet and sound, these 
impressions of the night are fleeting, and must be caught 
almost in the very act of transpiring, or they are wholly lost. 
It has happened to many, perhaps to most, to awake in a 
dream, and to take delight in the images left by it, and yet 
after another hour's sleep to be unable to restore them. 

The memory also, above all our faculties, seems to be 
especially affected by physical conditions. Fatigue and ner- 
vous exhaustion for the time being greatly diminish its 
power ; some forms of disease erase its impressions in whole 
or in part, while the weakness of age first betrays itself in 
this faculty. Since, then, physical conditions so obviously 
and directly modify this power, it is but natural to expect, 
that so great a change as that from wakeful activity to sleep 
might decidedly affect its action. The thoughts which pass 
through the mind in revery or abstraction, often leave very 
slight traces. Suddenly startled from such a waking dream 
by a practical claim, we can scarcely, the moment after, re- 
call what it was which so occupied us. These facts are 
sufficient to overcome the antecedent improbability of con- 



'46 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tinuous mental action, arising from the defect of memor}', 
and to leave the way open for proof 

The most obvious facts which go to establish the con- 
stant activity of mind are dreams. The memory does tes- 
tify to a large amount of movement in hours of sleep, not 
to be distinguished by external signs from other periods of 
repose. Some habitually dream : that is the play of imag- 
ery, the dumb show in the hours of darkness, the spectral 
troop of the sportive thoughts passes and repasses within the 
scope of mental vision, and the person, on waking, remains 
mindful of this fleet, flitting assemblage — of this under-cur- 
rent of his thoughts escaping the control of the senses and 
the voluntary life. Now, though others rarely dream, that 
is, rarely recall these shadows of the mind, leaving no more 
visible traces on the external life than do the clouds that fly 
through the heavens on the earth, which they darken for 
the moment ; this fact goes but a little way to weaken the 
presumption, that they are not very diff"erent from their 
fellows ; that the rehearsal of dreams is only a little more in- 
terior and close locked in the one case than in the other. 
This supposition is strengthened by the fact, that the habit 
of recalling and relating dreams is said to confirm the ten- 
dency to them, and to deepen their impressions. 

The nature also of dreams is a proof of their continuous 
presence. There is shown in them a certain freedom, yet 
also a certain weakness of the mind not found in the 
waking moments. The intellectual powers are plainly 
divorced from the usual restraint and guidance of the senses 
and the voluntary activities. Nothing seems monstrous, that 
is unnatural. The most incongruous events are accepted 
with perfect composure. The laws of nature are largely 
set aside, and the mind binds together, with its own fanciful 
connections in its own fanciful creations, the events that 
arise before it. The inner wheels are ungeared from the 
outer world, and revolve in their own rapid and irregular 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 47 

way. This fact goes to show that the senses are in full re- 
pose, while the mind retains this wild, free, sportive, un- 
tiring activity. 

In dreams, also, the will, through the rest of its physi- 
cal instruments, seems utterly powerless. Flight, however 
urgent the apparent necessity, is impossible. No personal 
exigency is met with physical prowess and strength. This ' 
seems to arise from the fact that the will finds itself 
thwarted by the inert, sleeping body, and not inducing its 
wonted effects in this torpid mass, throws back on the mind 
fear, faintness, and a sense of hopeless failure. Sometimes, 
indeed, the effort it puts forth is so great as to run, like an 
electric shock, through the muscles, and the awakened 
body is landed at a leap, startled and astonished, on the 
floor of the chamber. These facts all indicate that physical 
repose is accompanied with mental activity, and not simply 
that sleep is partial and disturbed. Such a state, indeed, 
affects the character of dreams, and deepens their impres- 
sion, and thus aids us in recalling them ; but does not seem 
to be their cause. 

A third fact looking to the same conclusion is the familiar 
one of talking in sleep, though the person on waking re- 
tains none of the impressions which occupied the mind. 
In such cases, mental activity is fairly shown to exist with- 
out corresponding recollections. The dog even will bark 
in his sleep, tickling the motor nerves with some tantalizing 
image of cat or rabbit. 

Allied to this is the fourth, more general proof furnished 
by somnambulism in all its forms. In these cases, the 
mind acquires a partial control of the body, and, while 
leaving the senses at rest, guides and stimulates its muscu- 
lar powers. The wonderful precision and daring with which 
this is sometimes done evince great calmness and activity 
of the faculties, enabling them to reach results impossible to 
the frightened, swimming senses. Of this character are 



48 ■ PRIXCIPLES 01-" PSYCHOLOGY. 

those familiar instances in which the somnambulist passes 
through positions of great peril without failure or disturb- 
ance. A student in my own college class had been greatly 
interested and perplexed by a difficult problem. He could 
not hit upon its solution. He retired to rest, and, in the 
night, rose in his sleep, and wrought it out on the board in 
the room. There, to his astonishment, he found it in the 
morning, the whole labor having left not the slightest trace 
in the memory. 

A fifth fact looking in the same direction, is that testified 
to by Sir William Hamilton, and open to any one's verifi- 
cation : "I have always observed that when suddenly awa- 
kened during sleep, (and, to ascertain the fact, I have caused 
myself to be roused at different seasons of the night, ) I 
have always been able to observe, that I was in the middle 
of a dream. The recollection of this dream was not always 
equally vivid. On some occasions, I was able to trace it 
back until the brai n was lost at a remote distance ; on oth- 
ers I was hardly aware of more than one or two of the lat- 
ter links of the chain ; and sometimes was scarcely certain 
of more than the fact, that I was not awakened from an un- 
conscious state." 

One more fact remains of very general prevalence confir- 
matory of those now given. The mind is found to exercise 
a certain measure of watchfulness over the body in hours of 
sleep. We sleep, as popular speech has it, with one eye 
open. Any thing unusual, though slight in character, 
arouses us, while familiar sounds pass unheeded. There is 
evidently a sentinel posted, who reports at once anything 
alarming, while he suffers ordinary events to pass unchal- 
lenged. We see something of this even in the torpor of in- 
toxication. The mind under an unsuccessful effort to 
arouse the body on the approach of danger, and, if the dan- 
ger is extreme, sometimes sobers the man at once. We as- 
sign the niind a specific duty. We lay upon it as a task, 



1 



THE FIELD OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 49 

that it shall awaken the body at a given moment. The mind 
is frequently disturbed, and made nervous by the imposition, 
and arouses the vexed body in a tentative way half a dozen 
times before the hour arrives ; or, better trained and more 
familiar with its service, it leaves the repose unbroken till 
the moment has fully come. 

These and kindred facts of observation seem sufficiently 
to establish the constant activity of the mind, and to render 
it certain, that this invisible agent of invisible phenomena 
has a continuous and manifested existence, whatever the 
condition of its factor — ^the body, may be. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Intellect — Its Divisions — Perception. 

§ 1. The first great class of mental faculties are those of 
the intellect. When we speak of faculties, we mean the 
different ways in which the one individual mind acts, ra- 
ther than a combination of distinct powers " under the ana- 
logy of our physical organism. The forms of knowing are 
treated first, not because they necessarily arise first, — feeling 
doubtless precedes them, and chiefly occupies conscious- 
ness in the first months of life — but because, in the activity 
of mind, they prepare the way for emotion and choice, and 
chiefly determine their form. The knowing are the recep- 
tive processes, and give material to the feelings and alterna- 
tives to choice. 

The intellectual powers have been divided into three prin- 
cipal classes; the sense, the understanding, and the rea- 
son. The first furnishes the direct facts, the forms of exis- 
nce which the mind contemplates, whether of the outer 



50 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

or inner world. The second carries on and sustains the 
processes of reflection concerning these, elaborating them 
into knowledge, experience. The third furnishes those 
necessary ideas under which only the movements of a ra- 
tional mind can go on. We shall not pause to speak of 
these divisions, as all that we have to say under each of 
them is requisite for their perfect comprehension. We* 
proceed to treat of the first of these classes, that of 
sense. 

This term is somewhat awkward, but as it has already 
been used in this connection, we avoid, by its retention, one 
great evil of metaphysics, a perpetually shifting nomencla- 
ture. The sense includes two, and quite diverse sources 
of knowledge ; the power of perception, and the immediate 
cognizance which the mind has of its own states. Under 
an image, but very partially applicable, they may be spoken 
of as the outer and inner eye of the intellect. 

§ 2. In perception we shall not, as is usually done, in- 
clude all the senses. A portion of these seem primarily 
avenues of feelings rather than of percepts. When the sen- 
sation is manifest, lying in the organ, and contemplated 
there as an occasion of pleasure or displeasure, the sense is 
evidently one of feeling, rather than of knowing. Though 
we may make the peculiar character of the odor, the taste, 
the pain, a ground of inference as to its source, and thus 
of knowledge, this fact does not destroy its primary con- 
nection with the sensibilities, the feelings. Nor is the fact 
that an odor, a flavor are, as it were, a form of knowing, a 
knowing that cannot be otherwise arrived at, a ground of 
classifying these sensations with the intellectual faculties ; 
since the same is true of love, sympathy, anger. The per- 
plexity arises, as has been already intimated, from the fact, 
that every feeling involves consciousness, and to know, and 
to be conscious of knowing, a thing, are constantly used as 
interchangeable expressions. As consciousness belongs 



I 



THE INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 5 1 

necessarily to thought, feeling and volition, it is not in this 
common condition of their existence, that their differences 
are to be looked for ; but in the nature of that existence, 
consciousness being conceded. All then, that abides in 
the organ as a distinct, local sensation, an incipient, or a 
positive pain or pleasure, is a matter of feeling, rather than 
of perception, and should be classified as a portion of our 
emotional nature. With this distinction in view, we have 
but two unmistakable organs of perception, the eye and the 
ear. Even these, under certain conditions, may give rise 
to sensations. The light may become so bright as to be 
painful ; the sound so loud or so sharp as to be disagreeable, 
that is organically disagreeable, and thus these senses serve 
for the time as avenues to feelings rather than to perceptions. 
The pleasures that enter the eye and ear in painting, sculp- 
ture, music, not being organic, but mental, do not interfere 
with the purely perceptive action of the senses. 

In perception, matter of knowledge, or of subjective emo- 
tions simply, is, through the medium of the organ of sense, 
brought to the mind. It is only by reflection, observation, 
that we know that the eye is the means of sight, or the ear 
of hearing. Neither of these organs, in their healthy state, 
give any direct indication of their office, or excite us by any 
passing sensation in the performance of it. To this fact 
our language conforms, and we speak of perception, an act- 
ing of the mind, through, rather than in the organ em- 
ployed. 

The sense of touch seems more mixed than any of the 
others. It declares its locality, and lodges its results as dis- 
tinct feelings in the finger-ends. Its sensations should, 
therefore, be primarily ranked with the feelings, and it be re- 
garded as an organ of feeling. Indeed, this conclusion 
language seems unmistakably to indicate, and, in designa- 
tion, we have passed over with the same word, feeling, from 
the external sense to the internal emotion. Touch, how- 



52 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

ever, approaches the two higher senses, in the fact that its 
sensations are made almost exclusively the ground of infer- 
ences rather than of enjoyments, and when highly develop- 
ed, are clear and ultimate in the information imparted, and 
almost wholly overlooked as forms of feehng. The blind 
doubtless cease almost entirely to contemplate the agreeable 
and disagreeable in touch — mdeed the tactual character of 
these sensations, and find in them a direct, unconscious 
medium of knowing. Under such circumstances, the 
sense is one of perception rather than sensation. 

§ 3. Taking the eye as the type of the intellectual 
senses, we ask, What do we see ? Most multiform and per- 
plexed have been the answers to this question, and most 
fatal, and, to the common understanding, preposterous have 
been the conclusions drawn from them. It is no part of 
our purpose to dwell on these either by exposition or refu- 
tation ; but simply to state what we regard as the just view, 
and with passing indications of its bearings to leave this to 
displace them. The nature of this view, and therefore its 
grounds, are so much involved in our idea of the intuitive 
action of the mind as to turn upon this fundamental feature 
of philosophy. The full reasons of our conclusions cannot 
therefore at once be spread out, but will be slowly made up 
as we present the entire furniture and action of the mind. 
The separate parts of our structure can show neither their 
fall strength nor fitness, till the whole is finished. 

In the first place, the eye as an organ of perception 
deals only with color, the ear only with sound. The 
sources of these colors and sounds are known only inferen- 
tially. It is a necessary belief, arising under the notion of 
causation, that these organs, that any organs, can become 
means of cognition only through these effects which have 
been wrought in themselves, and that unaffected they 
can be the medium of no knowledge. Effects not only 
demand causes, but causes efficiently present in them, in- 



THE INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 53 

terpenetrating them. The last, the immediate cause is in- 
separable from the effect. Now light and sound are the 
agents, and the only agents that reach these organs, and it 
is a matter of experience, of observation, that perception is 
immediately dependent on these agents as they penetrate 
into and work their changes on the organs of sense. Each 
organ is mechanically, obviously fitted for the action of its 
own agent, and every interference with these internal ad- 
justments, these means of transfer, destroys perception 
wholly or in part. While, therefore, our necessary beliefs 
demand an immediate effect on the organ of perception, ex- 
perience clearly points out the agents of this effect, and the 
contrivance by which it is wrought. 

The purely intellectual character of sight, the extent to 
which the eye is a simple, unconscious, translucent medium 
of the mind, is shown by the number, delicacy, variety, 
and furtive character of the judgments inextricably involved 
in vision. The earlier years of life are evidently busily em- 
ployed in learning to see, not in the scientific, but in the 
familiar use of the word. Only objects of special brillian- 
cy, or near at hand, or united with sounds, are able to ar- 
rest and hold the eye of the infant. Slowly does it learn to 
distinguish the mother's face when at a distance, or to give 
direction to the eye, or separation to objects, except as 
one or other of them is forced obtrusively on the attention. 
These facts harmonize with the further recorded fact, that 
the eyes of one couched in mature life, seemed to report 
all objects under the analogy of touch ; that is, as directly 
in contact with the organ of vision. These spaces, greater 
and less, which the educated eye now reveals ; this opening 
up and spreading out of the universe before it, this unsearch- 
able depth, this heignt this breadth, are not the products of 
direct vision, but of vision modified by innumerable judg- 
ments, and mingled .with them. The most of them we 
form unconsciously, and learned to make early in life, 



54 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

their accuracy and ease being increased by ever)' day's ex- 
perience. How many things come in to determine our es- 
timates of the distances of surrounding objects, the clear 
ness or faintness of colors, the depth of blue cast upon 
them by the atmosphere, their apparent size, intervening ob- 
jects and the muscular adjustment of the eyes in their per- 
ception. The nearness or remoteness of objects is exclu- 
sively determined by these considerations, and is not at all 
a matter of direct sight. IMost have probably experienced, 
in some moment of relative abstraction, an exaggerated or 
false impression made by some object or objects, seen, but 
not observed, and marked the instantaneousness with which 
these flashed into their true form upon the first voluntary, 
distinct direction of the eye toward them. The relative 
position and size of objects are also almost wholly a matter 
of judgment ; the eye itself only records their angular sep- 
aration. It reduces them to a map-surface, and leaves 
their relations and distances unrecorded. Angles, not 
lines, are contemplated by it. The distances outward from 
the eye, and hence laterally also, are wholly a matter of 
conjecture, of experience. 

To these judgments are to be added those which reveal 
forms, which turn on light and shade, and from these 
data arrive at the most complex surfaces. We thus see 
that the pure visual data of sight are very meagre, and 
bear no more resemblance and intimate connection to the 
world in which we live, than do the' canvas and the paints 
thereon, as canvas and paints merely, to the landscape repre- 
sented. This saturation of a sense by the understanding, 
this inflation of a single drop by the breath of rational 
thought into a brilliant sphere, and the acquired ability to 
do this as child's play, are the noticeable features of this, 
our highest organ of perception, quite distinguishing it 
from such an organ as that of taste, from which with 



THE INTELLECT — PERCEPTION. 55 

smack, pause and reiteration, we reach one or two uncer- 
tain conclusions. 

The ear is akin to the eye, though considerably below it, 
in the number of judgments its habitual use involves. The 
direction, distance and source of sounds are plainly learned 
by experience ; though in most cases we hardly separate 
the mere phenomenal fact from the judgments on which 
our knowledge, our conclusions depend. To these -are to 
be added all the variety of feelings expressed by intonation, 
and unconsciously derived therefrom, and also that represen- 
tative power of articulate sounds instituted in language, yet 
through familiarity employed and interpreted without 
thought. Here again the under-play of the understanding 
is very great, exploding a single ictus of sound, like a thimble 
of powder, into a death-warrant, or opening the gates of 
blessedness by the key of a monosyllabic assent. Thus does 
the mind work up the crude material, the physical nutrition 
of an organic susceptibility, into the daily food and the spe- 
cial feasts of the soul. 

The point of most philosophical interest in these senses 
is the approach we make to a more exact answer to the in- 
quiry : What do we perceive .? Is it something external to 
the organ ? or, is it something subjective to it ? or is it 
subjective to the mind itself.? If, in the word percep- 
tion, we include all the mind's action therein, its direct 
and its inferential knowing, then plainly we perceive 
something external to the eye, external to the mind. 
If, however, by perception, we mean only the arriving at 
those simple intuitive data, around which these judgments 
cluster, and which they construct into the well-ordered and 
complete vision of mature life, then the mind perceives 
that only which is subjective to itself, and knows directly no 
more about the intermediate organ it uses than it does of 
the external object which is the joint, final product of its per- 
ceptive, reflective, inferential powers. The first spontaneous 



56" PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

answer of philosophy has been, the direct perceptive action of 
the mind is confined to the circle of its own activity, to con- 
sciousness ; and probably no other answer would have been 
sought for, had not the conclusions drawn from this earlier 
statement, led to a reconsideration of it. These conclusions 
have been idealism, and have compelled those who have 
wished to establish the independent existence of the exter- 
nal world, and have had no other means at hand to do it, 
to re-analyze perception, and find therein a valid objective 
element. Overlooking the inferences of the mind, they 
have given it a direct knowledge of matter. 

The proof of idealism runs thus : i. " We cannot know 
things in themselves ; all knowledge is subjective ; it is con- 
fined to unseen states and changes. 

2. "If this is so, then still more is what we name the ob- 
jective, only a state or change of us as subjective, it is 
a mere fiction of the mind so far as it is regarded as a be- 
yond, or a thing in itself. 

3. " Hence we do know the objective; for the skepticism 
can only legitimately conclude that the objective that we do 
know, is of a nature kindred to reason, and that by an a 
priori necessity we can affirm that not only all knowable 
must have this nature, but also all possible existence must. 
Self-conscious intelligence must be, according to its very de- 
finition, subject and object in one, and thus universal." 

Hamilton has striven to break this charmed circle of the 
mind at the point of perception, afilrming that a real objec- 
tive element is directly recognized therein. He says, 
' ' we have no reason whatever to doubt the report of con- 
■ sciousness, that we actually perceive at the external point of 
sensation, and that we perceive the material reality." 
"The total and real object of perception is the external ob- 
ject under relation to our sense and faculty of cognition." 
"Suppose the total object to be twelve, that the external 
reality constitutes six, the material sense three, and the mind 



THB INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 57 

three ; this may enable you to form some conjecture of the 
nature of the object of perception. " 

Is there any good ground for the very general and very 
stubborn conviction that the mind cannot, by way of direct 
apprehension, act on anything external to itself; or are 
Reid and Hamilton right in regarding this as a pure as- 
sumption ? 

It is very difiicult and very important, in a discussion of 
this character, to be aware of the physical images which 
cling to our words and mislead the thought by material 
analogies. In and out, where it is, and where it is not, are 
expressions applicable to matter rather than to mind, and 
we must not in this case confound the intellect even with 
its instruments, the brain and the nervous system. The 
effects which take place in these are one thing, and what 
enters consciousness as a purely spiritual product, a thought, 
a feeling, an inner experience, is quite another. The con- 
nection between the two, an affection of the organ of sense 
and an affection of the mind, is unknown, and for the pre- 
sent at least insoluble. They are as wide apart in kind as any 
two known things can be, since the one is physical and the 
other spiritual, classes of phenomena for which we have 
found no common term. There seems some plausi- 
bility in the notion of external perception, when we contem- 
plate the organism of any one sense, as that of the eye. 
The light enters. A sensible, visible effect — visible to 
another eye — is provoked on the retina. To this com- 
pound effect, to which two agencies are contributing, the 
eye and the light, it may seem reasonable to regard the 
nerve as sensitive, and therefore to suppose it to take cog- 
nizance of the immediate presence of a foreign agent. If, 
then, we could identify the perception of the mind with this 
condition of its organ, there would seem to be in it also a 
direct knowledge of one force at least, that of light, alien 
and external to itself. 



58 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

But even on this supposition, farther reflection would mo- 
dify our conclusion. In purely physical causation, the 
cause, though entering into the effect, is not as a cause re- 
cognizable there. Indeed it seems probable that there is not 
invariably the same transferred force in one series of effects 
as in another, and that in some results the prime agency 
quickly disappears. A ball is struck by a bat, and set in mo- 
tion : after the ball has parted from the bat how much of the 
antecedent fact could be found in the subsequent one of in- 
dependent motion ? How far would the second pheno- 
menon directly disclose the first, or what common term or 
force could be detected in the two ? The force is not dis- 
cernible aside from the results it occasions, and antecedent 
effects are not given in subsequent ones. Suppose the 
same ball to be observed falling under the influence of 
gravitation. How far would this new cause be discoverable 
directly in this new phase of movement ? Again, chemical 
action is initiated by a rise of tem'perature ; water is in- 
stantly frozen under certain conditions by a slight jar; the 
brain is quickened by a full stomach ; in these and a 
thousand other cases of causation, what portion of the 
cause is in the effect, to be found there as a part in a 
whole, as the numbers 6, 3, 3, in the sum twelve. Evi- 
dently in a purely physical effect it is impossible for us to 
detect the cause as a cause ; as a second, primar}', alien 
agency, entering into and constituting a distinguishable 
part of the new, simple, single state before us. 
•~ We perceive phenomena only, not the underlying forces, 
not the very causes ; these, and the antecedent facts they 
may have occasioned, are matters of inference and of ex- 
perience exclusively. If, then, the phenomena transpiring 
in the eye were, as they are not, identical with those of the 
mind, it would be impossible that these should include a 
knowledge of the very cause, and even less possible thai 



THE INTELLECT — PERCEPTION. 59 

they should include a direct knowledge of antecedent, ex- 
ternal phenomena reached only by inference through this 
hidden, unsearchable force or cause. We may direct atten- 
tion in this discussion to two things : the very cause or effi- 
ciency which necessarily co-exists with the effect and sus- 
tains it, and the immediately antecedent phenomenal 
eifect, more often spoken of as the cause. The first ot 
these is not discoverable in the eye, since no causes, as 
causes, are, or can be directly known. To know pheno- 
menally the very cause, would be to make that cause a 
phenomenon, that is an effect, that is not a cause. Pure 
being, causal being, the being or force that lies back of 
effects, of phenomena, cannot be known perceptively as a 
result. To affirm this is to deny causation, and make a 
phenomenon its own cause. 

The second of these, to wit, the immediately antece- 
dent, outside effect, cannot be perceptively found and 
known in the eye, for the obvious reason that it is not 
there. If, therefore, we were to direct the attention to the 
eye, the organ, alone, and identify its states with those of 
the mind, we should still be unable directly, perceptively to 
discover anything in it but its own phenomena, which are 
neither the outside object, nor do they contain any cogniz- 
able portion of it. We are not to regard the eye with the 
facts that transpire in it as at once inseparable from the 
mind and external to it. If its changes are the changes of 
the mind, then all that is to it outside is equally so to the per- 
ceptions. So truly subjective, then, is even the organic state 
of the eye in sight, that were this the thing revealed in con- 
sciousness, we should still not be able to separate or distin- 
guish the external element, "six," in the sum twelve, and 
kiiovv it directly as a foreign agency. The phenomenal six 
alone should we perceive, and still be compelled to infer 
hence the causal six supporting it. 

But when we pass, as we should, the condition of the or- 



66 - PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

gan as itself unknown to the mind and outside of it, and 
contemplate the true immaterial content of consciousness, 
the case is, if possible, still plainer. Perception as an act 
of mind does not reveal to us the instrument of sense em- 
ployed, or the state of that instrument. The connection 
between a mental state and the physical state which accom- 
panies it, is mysterious and unknown ; it is not so much as 
_--lifnted at in the verj^ act of perception, in consciousness. 
For aught that we can see, the last might be very different 
from what it is, and the first remain the same. Indeed, 
that there are to sight and hearing accompanying physical 
states, what these states are, and even where they are, con- 
stitute facts which require to be learned from experience. 
Even in advanced life we do not always recognize at which 
ear a given sound chiefly enters, and tentatively test the 
question by turning the attention, first in one direction, 
then in the other. The content of consciousness, then, is 
not of such a nature as to reveal in perception the states of 
the retina, or of the auditory nen-e ; or whether there is in 
them more or less of foreign action. These changes are 
sunk foundations on which the visible structure rests, but 
are not in the least disclosed in their nature by it. They 
are the sub-marine cable, neither declared in its length nor 
its depth, nor in the mechanical, nor electric conditions of 
its structure, by the messages sent and received at either 
terminus. To introduce causes into consciousness, that 
they may be there directly known, is either to assert their 
supersensual and immaterial character, is to grant the as- 
sertion of idealism : "we do know the object, and there- 
fore it is of a nature akin to thought;" or, it is to break 
down the fundamental distinction between mental and 
physical phenomena, affirming that both transpire in con- 
sciousness, that the physical facts of the brain are the 
spiritual facts of mind. Yet having made this inadmissible 
concession, we are confi-onted with the facts, that conscious- 



THE INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 6 1 

ness does not of itself indicate whether the brain, or the 
heart, or the bowels, are the seat of thought ; whether we 
see with our fingers or our eyes; and the farther fact, that 
causes, as causes, are never discoverable even in purely phy- 
sical effects. 

The assertion, then, that we cannot directly know things 
in themselves, follows inevitably from the two assertions : 
consciousness is the sole field of perceptive knowledge ; no 
material phenomena, as material, can appear in conscious- 
ness, interpenetrated so tp^peak, by it. Consciousness covers 
all intellectual know-ledge, and excludes all else ; lays down a 
line of demarcation impassable either from within or from 
without, cutting apart matter and mind. This conclusion we 
believe all experience confirms, and that no one would have 
thought of denying it, save under the pressure of certain 
difficulties to be evaded, and certain conclusions to be 
reached. 

§ 4. How far pure idealism, that professedly knows 
only mind, is entitled to these assertions which we are 
ready to make in common with it, is a question of more 
doubt. We, in our position, arrive at them by a know- 
ledge, an inferential knowledge, both of matter and mind, 
by an experimental discovery of 'their mutually impenetrable 
character. If we were, as idealism asserts, in every way de- 
barred access to matter — to matter as believed in by the 
masses of men, it would certainly not be so plain, how we 
could come so universally to form a distinct, uniform and 
controlling idea of its character, and be able also to affirm, 
that this most omnipresent and fixed of our notions is, in its 
essential features, a mere figment of the brain. Why a se- 
ries of physical conceptions which is removed by the very 
nature of mind from even the bare possibility both of know- 
ledge and being, should nevertheless be the most uniform 
and universal of mental states, is not explained by ideal- 
ism. How a form of thought, necessarily false, comes 



6i PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

to be a fixed product and characteristic of mind, how it 
happens that we continually talk, think, and act in reference 
to matter, matter which by the constitution of the rnted, is 
beyond all its forms of knowledge ; how science and philo- 
sophy come to so utterly differ from each other in their be- 
liefs, are mysteries which must ever to the straightfonvard 
practical thinker reflect the highest improbability on ideal- 
ism, and leave it among those strange, remote conclusions, 
which when not directly disproved are too far off to disturb the 
orbit of our daily life. When philosophy subverts know- 
ledge, instead of expounding it, and denies the validity of 
he most settled, familiar and unavoidable judgments of 
the mind, it assumes an anarchical character, removing the 
foundations, if not of thought, yet of conviction. 

§ 5. We believe the true doctrine of perception to be, that 
the state of consciousness therein, the knowing, is purely sub- 
jective both in action and object, indeed that the action 
and object are inseparable. To perceive a color, is to put 
forth a complete, primary, simple act of knowing, complete 
in that something is known; primar)Mn that no farther ex- 
planation can be forced upon it, the act standing in its own 
light, apprehensible for what it is in itself; and simple in 
that it is incapable of successful analysis. On the occasion 
of such a perception, the mind, of its own interpreting ac- 
tion, under the notion of causation, infers an external 
source of the impression, which, as a necessar}', and certain, 
and uniform conclusion, becomes to it as valid as any that 
it ever makes. Its validity, like the validity of all mental 
acts, is referable to the clearness and constancy with which 
1 it is made and repeated. The ground on which we accept 
any truth is the distinctness and reiteration with which the 
mind affirms it. We reach, then, the external world not 
directly by perception, but indirectly, infcrentially, along a 
bridge of thought, whose farther abutment our rational na- 
ture supplies, and whose connections are established by 



THE INTELLECT PEECEPTION. 63 

varied and repeated, and protracted experience. Shifting 
the figure we strike the shore with the grapple of causation, 
and by this guy we swing. 

If asked why the mind supphes the idea in connection 
with one mental state, that of perception, more than with 
another, as that of thought ; how it knows where and when 
to fling into the air its coil of rope, that it may thereby be 
lashed to the physical world, the answer comes : It is the 
fruit of varied and protracted experience. A sensation is 
found to be a new, distinct, sudden, independent state. As 
such it demands explication in an outside cause. A 
thought is a consecutive, evolved, dependent product, that 
can be renewed in the mind at pleasure, and by this fact 
find explication through the mind itself. The various 
senses also, in their diverse yet independent reports, mutu- 
ally aid and guide the mind in this reference of sensations 
to external causes. Impressions in distinct organs are 
found always to accompany each other in certain forms, 
under a fixed order. Thus experience is constantly disclos- 
ing the character of phenomena, and the mind rapidly 
learns to distinguish those inwardly dependent on its own 
action, from those dependent outwardly on foreign agents. 
This class it cannot, from its own constitution, leave with- 
out this causal reference and exposition. 

The confusion which sometimes overtakes the mind in per- 
ception, illustrates its method of education, and the man- 
ner in which it is commenced. A pressure is felt across 
the forehead, as if the band placed upon it had been drawn 
too tightly. We cannot tell with certainty whether the im- 
pression is due to this, or to the astringency of a fluid with 
which the fillet was saturated. We test the point by raising 
the hand, and determining whether or not nicvhanical 
force is present. In the absence of this, we refer the feel- 
ing to the condition of the nerves. Again, we seem to 
hear a sound, as the anxious parent the crying of her child. 



64 PRINXIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

She cannot at once decide whether the impression was the 
suggestion of her own thought, or the actual effect of the 
supposed cause. The attention is more carefully directed, 
the phenomena that enter the mind from without, being 
discriminated from the mere play of fancy ; and by this 
more complete separation of its own action from the action 
of other agents the point is settled. 

§ 6, It has been thought, and much has been made of 
this point, that a denial of direct perception is an impeach- 
ment of the veracity of our faculties, or, as it is expressed by 
Hamilton and others, of consciousness ; and that the way 
is thus logically opened to universal skepticism. Idealism 
is certainly not a denial of the facts of consciousness. Per- 
ception as a fact of mind, is accepted, and the first exception 
taken, is as to what perception is, what it gives us. Now 
the veracity of consciousness is only involved in the mere 
fact of perception, the mere rehearsal and acceptance of its 
mental phenomena, not at all in the nature and validity of 
its supposed revelations. Idealism does, however, set aside 
a general belief of mankind, and so far tends to skepticism. 
Even this accusation does not hold against the view of per- 
ception now presented. The general belief of men in an 
external world is maintained, though a careful analysis 
shows the grounds of the conclusion to be somewhat differ- 
ent from those at first accepted. The accusation against 
idealism is not, that it shows a general opinion to be 
groundless, but that it affirms simply and nakedly a general 
and necessary belief to be deceptive; that is the reiterated and 
constant action of the mind to be delusive. We may, on like 
grounds, pronounce the axiomatic conclusions of the rea- 
son unreliable. These are nothing more than its inevitable 
convictions. 

The affirmation in which the unaided powers of all men 
agree, which they spontaneously and inevitably make, is 
the existence of an external world, the opposition of m.at- 



THE INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 65 

ter to mind, a reference of a portion of our inner expe- 
rience, to outer sources or causes. Whether this conclusion 
is direct, intuitive, or involves one or more of the simplest 
acts of judgment, most men have never so much as inquired, 
and have therefore no convictions concerning it. It is 
doubtless a matter of surprise to most persons, to find, on 
""l^^quiry, so many judgments mingled with- the simplest act 
of sight. These had been overlooked, and the act of see- 
ing regarded as more full, explicit and immediate than it is. 
Language favors this concealment of obscure, rapid judg- 
ments, and we are said to see the form of a sphere, when 
we merely infer it. Yet there is no ground for a distrust 
of man's faculties, because they are formed to act in ways 
and proportions not perfectly understood by those who ac- 
cept results, with no investigation of methods. To tell a 
man that the unlikeness of the images of the same object in 
each of his two eyes, is one of the grounds from which the 
impression of nearness is received, may interest and sur- 
prise him, but does not so shake his confidence in his own 
conclusions, in the reliability of the mind's action, as when 
he is told that the external world, in which he has so fully be- 
lieved, that he has never so much as thought of its existence 
as a matter of belief, is a mere creation of the mind, one 
portion of its own acts being thrown into opposition to 
another portion. The one assertion arrests and throws 
back in confused, eddying currents, the whole stream of 
intellectual action ; the other merely shows that analysis re- 
veals more elements in mental phenomena, than those at 
first caught sight of. There is no reason why the statement, 
that there is a simple judgment, an act of inference involved 
in a belief of the existence of matter and of mind, should 
be regarded as any more skeptical, any more destructive to 
the faith to be reposed in our faculties, than the generally 
accepted doctrine, that sight includes many judgments, de- 
pendent on protracted experience. The assertion of Ham- 



66. PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

ilton, ' ' that consciousness gives a knowledge of the ego, 
in relation and contrast to the non-ego," even if it were 
readily intelligible to all, would hardly, I think, be regarded as 
a satisfactory statement of a general and unwavering belief, 
when contrasted with the statement, there is found that in 
consciousness, from which we directly and inevitably infer 
the existence of matter and mind. Most would doubtless 
regard the two statements as open to consideration, as lying 
alike in the line of the common belief in the external 
world. Indeed, to say that the mind is conscious of itself, 
is conscious of matter, gives a shock at once to thought, 
and to language, and is far from being that explicit, inde- 
feasible statement of the common faith, which all at once 
recognize. 

The exact grounds ofthe general belief, is certainly open to 
inquiry, and one statement which accepts its validity is no 
more exposed to the charge of a denial of the integrity of 
the human faculties, than another. Indeed the spontaneous 
conviction of the existence and nature of external objects 
involves many judgments besides this one of causation. 
I see the apple before me. My present impression is — the 
steps of my past experience being unanalyzed, that I 
see it to be round, to be red, to be three inches in diam- 
eter and at a distance of three feet. How does this im- 
pression agree with what Sir William Hamilton say^ is the 
real object of perception .^ " Through the eye we perceive 
nothing but the rays of light in relation to, and in contact 
with the retina. " Who ever perceived them, or came to so 
much as a knowledge of them, without diligent scientific 
inquiry ? Light, as the fruit of much research, is found to 
be a form of motion, and this motion to affect the retina ; 
but no man ever knows the existence of the retina, or of 
the undulations of light therein, save through an inquiry 
into eyes other than his own, and a careful investigation of 
the physical world. What is here asserted to be the sole 



THE INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 6j 

object of perception, the mind never perceives, but only 
employs it as a submerged, unknown cause through which 
it arrives at its own knowledge, to wit : a red apple of a 
given size, and position. In this final product of percep- 
tion, there are contained innumerable judgments, and it 
should certainly be no surprise to find among them, this 
one of outside existence. That the spaces of the world 
are inferentially given, is entirely in keeping with the fact, 
that those of a painting are, by the previous habit and im- 
pulse of the mind, supplied under suitable suggestions of 
light and shade. 

The crude material granted to the mind seems to be a 
subjective impression of redness, of certain extension and 
various shades. From this, by the aid of muscular and 
tactual experience, and the help afforded by the color and 
relations of surrounding objects, it constructs an apple and 
assigns it independent existence in a definite locality. 
This it now does instantly, like a flash of light, though it 
has acquired the power of doing it slowly, by much and 
forgotten experience. The intuitive, primitive, intellectual 
elements are wholly unlike this final physical result, this 
tissue of judgments, these data of sense inter-shot with a 
few firm threads from the shuttle of reason. Indeed, no in- 
stance in our later knowledge, in which an entire system 
of principles is evolved from a few facts, more evinces the as- 
tonishing power which belongs to the mind, than does this 
simplest, earliest, most common case of reasoning, that of 
perception. 

That color is known as the motion of an ethereal medi- 
um on the retina, or that there is any connection of the 
two, or knowledge of the one in and through the other, are 
statements not intelligible even, till science by secondary in- 
quiries has made them so. The transfer of motion at one 
sense into vision, at another into hearing, and in the brain 



68 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

itself into thought, are inexplicable transformations, whose 
terms we only know by independent investigation, and even 
then fail of their connection. To suppose that any por- 
tion of this knowledge comes directly in perception, is the 
most obvious and violent perversion of experience. 

If we were directly cognizant, and only cognizant of the 
content in the organ of sense, cognizant of it for what it is, 
and where it is, physically, there would be no opportunity 
for deception or oversight in matters of perception. A 
force acting on a machine tells, and must tell, for exactly 
what it is. The effect is direct and inevitable. So would 
it be in perception. We should never make a ghost of a 
stump, or overlook altogether the objects whose images are 
actually on the retina ; that have actually caused the light 
to impinge with customary power on this sensitive medium. 
It is because the mind gives 'a frightened attention, or no 
attention, inadequate interpretation, or no interpretation, to 
these objects, that perception is distorted, or fails alto- 
gether. The mere physical effect in itself alone is nuga- 
tory. 

It is said that those whose eyes are distorted, use either 
one or the other as they choose, directing the attention, the 
perception, to the right or the left as convenience requires, 
the impression in the neglected organ going for nothing ; 
and we all of us evidently take up and lay down at pleasure 
the physical effects on the retina, using them as means of 
vision only when the mind is at leisure to do so. These 
facts show, without doubt, that perception is deepei than the 
organ of sense, is by no means identical with the appro- 
•priate action therein, nor is sure to follow it. It is, then, 
no impeachment of the veracity of our faculties to inquire 
into the exact mode of their action, nor any the more so 
because the inquiry discloses unexpected results. 

§ 7. A farther error connected with the doctrine of direct 
perception is the division of the qualities of matter into pri- 



THE INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 69 

mary and secondary. The list of primary qualities is differ- 
ently made out by different philosophers. Extension and 
solidity are generally recognized as chief among them. The 
criteria of these qualities as compared with secondary qualities 
are that matter cannot exist without them, and especially urged 
by Hamilton, that in the primary qualities perception is pecu- 
liarly direct and clear, ' ' the objective element predominates, " 
' ' matter is known as principal in its relation to mind. " The 
distinction between primary and secondary qualities seems 
in these tests to be in part untenable, and in part of an un- 
certain character, and to arise from an oversight of those 
necessary intuitive ideas involved in the very existence of 
matter. 

Extension should not be regarded as a property of mat- 
ter, and if so regarded is not, in the form in which it exists 
concretely, a necessary property. No portion of matter is 
necessarily of one size rather than another. The actual 
quality of extension, if it is to be so termed, is as variable as 
any other quality. The only universality in this attribute 
more than in other attributes of matter is found in the fact, 
that all matter must exist in space, and hence under the one 
form of extension. Space, extension, is a necessary condi- 
tion of matter. Without it, those qualities, properly so 
called, which constitute matter, cannot have a being. It is 
involved in their manifestations, that they occupy some por- 
tion of space, and this primary quality, so called, is only this 
essential condition for the existence of matter. We might 
as well say that duration is a quality of matter, as to say 
that extension is such a quality ; since no form of matter 
can exist without occupying, or extending through, some 
period of time, more or less. 

Nor is the second criterion any more satisfactory in its 
application. If there is any one direction in which the 
mind acts with a sense of establishing and delininj its own 
data, it is this of extension. Odor, taste, color, are what 



70- PRINCIPLES OF PS-VCHOLOGY. 

they are, directly through the nature of the outside cause , 
but the form of a body is arrived at through meagre grounds 
of judgment unfolded by the enlargement and corrections 
of protracted experience ; while the notion under which 
alone their evolution can proceed, that of space, is furnish- 
ed entirely by the mind. Let the full action of intuitive 
ideas be recognized, and primary qualities in their peculiar 
significance will disappear. Perception, instead of being 
unusually direct and immediate in extension, is more than 
elsewhere indirect, enlarged by inference. A knowledge 
of the forms of bodies involves an unusual number of 
judgments, whether arrived at by muscular movement, or 
the eye, or the two conjointly. 

Solidity, as a primary quality, is open to a like form of 
criticism. That which must in this discussion be under- 
stood by solidity, is very different from the notion which the 
word ordinarily conveys ; it is the impossibility of complete 
compression, complete displacement. A gas is in this 
sense as much a solid as a piece of steel, since, when 
properly confined in a cylinder, it is found to exclude the 
piston as certainly as the most solid substance. Compres- 
sion cannot proceed to all lengths. A resistance accompanies 
pressure, and an increased and insuperable resistance re- 
mains as the final result. Without this ultimate resistance 
to foreign matter, this capability of occupying space to the 
exclusion of other things, whatever may be the signs of 
force present, as in gravitation or electricity, we withhold the 
appellation of matter. Here again any given degree of in- 
compressibility is not necessary to matter, but only that 
there should be some degree of it, and some degree of in- 
compressibility is necessary, as involved in the occupation 
of space. Only so can space be filled and held possession 
of The general necessity, then, is evolved from this general 
condition of the existence and recognition of matter, that 



THE INTELLECT — PERCEPTION. 7 1 

it shall be a space-filling force, that it shall have a perma- 
nent substratum to its phenomena. 

As then the necessary connection of extension with mat- 
ter arises from the idea of space, so that of solidity arises 
from the occupation of space, the idea of a local, fixed cause, 
the source of fixed phenomena. That the forces which 
lie at the basis of matter may in some cases penetrate each 
other, as in the union of two gases, and may in others en- 
tirely exclude each other, as in the contact of solids, are 
facts to be learned by experience. The very notion of 
matter, however, is that it involves a local cause or force, 
and if a cause or force, that it has some means of showing 
itself as a force, some power of exclusion, some solidity. 
The notion of causation, therefore, assigns a measure of re- 
sistance to matter as a necessary condition of its phenomena. 
A specific measure and kind of force is a quality of a 
given form or kind of matter, and involves the fact of resist- 
ance or solidity when the matter under appropriate condi- 
tions is subjected to pressure. 

If it be said that the distinction between primary and 
secondary qualities is valid, since solidity necessarily in- 
volves force, the substratum of matter ; answer is made, that 
no actual, that no specific form of force is necessary to 
matter, but only some form of force, and that this is as ne- 
cessary to color, to flavor, to odor, when these are present, 
as to solidity when this is shown. Solidity, or resistance, 
or more strictly still, the sense of resistance, has no perma- 
nent existence any more than odor or color, demands like 
them for its manifestation appropriate conditions, and does 
no more than they do, in demanding as a condition an ex- 
ternal force. If, then, we speak of the effects matter is ca- 
pable of producing as the qualities of that matter, odor, re- 
sistance are such qualities, but neither of them are constant ; 
both are occasional, and conditioned to fitting circum- 
stances ; both of them imply that which is permanent and 



72 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

necessary. From taste as from touch, ^Ye may infer an ex- 
ternal, local cause, a cause that must hence occupy space, 
be a space-filling force, at least to one sense, which is the 
entire conclusion derivable from resistance. 

If it be said that the circumstances are in all cases possible 
under which the quality of solidity may be drawn out, 
while those which disclose odor are peculiar to a few bodies, 
we answer, this is a question of experience, is far from being 
proved, and, if established, could bring with it no sense of 
necessity, differencing the two cases. Bodies which yield no 
odor under one form, may under another. Odor seems to 
involve chemical change, and it might be found that every 
substance would yield it under fitting chemical conditions. 
This is a question to be decided by protracted and varied 
experience, and however decided, could only be the ground 
of an empirical, and not of a necessary division of qualities. 

Take such a secondary quality as that of color. It 
seems antecedently probable, that all bodies have color. 
Some gases are apparently colorless, but so is the atmo- 
sphere in small volumes. Experience and theory would 
lead us to expect that the most diff"used force in sufficient 
volume would affect the transmission of light. On the 
other hand, who has ever tested all the forms of matter as 
to resistance under pressure ? Certainly not metaphysi- 
cians. The distinction between primary and secondary 
qualities resting on this basis would be purely empirical, 
of no metaphysical significance, and till inquiry of a 
thorough and searching character should have been insti- 
tuted, of a doubtful nature. 

This then cannot be the sufficient and prevailing ground 
of this distinction, but we must look farther for something 
thought to inhere in the very nature of matter, necessary to 
it and betrayed by solidity, by every primary quality. 
This necessary something we accept, and believe the notion 
of it to arise under the intuitive idea of cause and effect ; 



THE INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 73 

but also believe, that this notion is revealed, called forth, 
as certainly by odor, by color, by taste, as by pressure ; 
and that we inevitably put back of each of these subjective ef- 
fects, a permanent force called matter. This permanent force 
is necessary to the notion of matter, and is as appropriately 
reached by one sense as by another, by one effect as by an- 
other; indeed, is indicated by any sensation which betrays an 
external world. The qualities which find entrance through 
one organ, have no more right to be called primary, that is 
fundamental, than those which enter at another. If the sense 
of muscular effort were wanting, we might still be able to ar- 
rive at theideaof matter ; though its alleged primary quality 
should not be directly recognizable by us. We should then 
understand color and flavor as indications of a local force, 
apprehensible by sight and taste. 

The second criterion more signally fails than the first in 
its application to solidity. Far from matter's coming most 
directly and fully in contact with mind through solidity, 
in many instances it is only in a secondary, inferential way, 
that this quality is at all arrived at. A gas makes no im- 
pression on the muscular system, offers no obstacle to 
movement, calls forth no sense of resistance, till closely con- 
fined ; and then by that very confinement is put beyond 
direct contact with any organ of sense. We are left wholly 
and most obviously to infer the resistance, the solidity of 
gases, from the fact that the piston cannot, in the cylinder 
containing them, be forced perfectly down to its bed, and 
recoils as the hand is lifted. Surely perception is not 
more immediate and full here than elsewhere ; on the con- 
tT2Lvy, there is no perception of the point at issue, the solid- 
ity of the gas, but only a judgment to that effect. Even the 
solidity of a solid directly handled is inferred from the 
muscular effort expended in the attempt to crush it, and 
only admits of an estimate by an indirect method. 

This doctrine of primary and secondary qualities, main- 



74 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tained by so large a variety of philosophers, is of interest, 
chiefly from the way in which it has grown out of the er- 
rors, or betrays the errors, held by them ; and yet more from 
the indication it gives of an unconscious influence of 
truths not formally recognized. Thus, Locke speaks of 
the ' ' inseparable " nature of extension as a quality of 
matter, while declining to accept the antecedent necessity of" 
space as a condition of matter, and a knowledge of mat- 
ter. Herein he grants to matter the necessity which he has 
denied to mind ; whereas by necessity can only be meant 
something which the mind inevitably affirms, a union of 
things which it sees to be indissoluble. No matter how of- 
ten things are practically connected, unless the mind can so 
far penetrate that connection as to see the one to be involved 
in the other, their dependence would not seem to be a ne- 
cessary one. Yet this father of materialism speaks of in- 
separable qualities, when experience in many cases had 
neither seen, felt, nor in any way tested their existence. 
Why this inference, this judgment of universal, of neces- 
sary extension and solidity } Because of a conviction latent 
in the mind through its intuitive ideas, a conviction inde- 
pendent of the complete expansion of experience. 
•^ Hamilton, again, looking at this division of qualities 
through the doctrine of direct perception, jumps at the con- 
clusion that primary qualities are those more immediately 
revealed, whereas inquiry shows that solidity, the most un- 
deniable of them, is often wholly unapproachable to any 
form of direct perception, and is arrived at by reasonings 
from sensations which arise indirectly from the object of ex- 
periment. The staff" so quickly clutched at has become a 
broken reed. Thus philosophers furnish undesigned and 
most valuable proof to an adverse theory, by recognizing 
and striving to use in a disguised form the truths which it 
proclaims, and assigns their true position. The acknow- 
ledged necessity of primary qualities is not in them but in 



THE INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 75 

that intuitive action of the mind which they call forth. Ne- 
cessity which every philosopher seems ready to introduce at 
some point, is born not of experience, but of men's 
thoughts ; not of matter, but of mind. 

We briefly sum up the conclusions arrived at. Extension 
is not a quality of matter, but its antecedent condition, and 
owes the sense of necessity that accompanies it to the ne- ' 
cessaiy idea of space. The same reason that makes it, 
would make duration also a quality of matter. The 
actual form or extension of bodies is contingent and infer- 
ential. Solidity, or the power of exclusion, is a quality of 
matter, and owes its necessity to our idea of the nature of 
matter, an idea arising under the notions of space and of 
cause. It differs not from odor, color in implying a per- 
manent substratum. Every quality of matter, every sensa- 
tion and perception involves this, though they mutually 
deepen and confirm it. Solidity, a sense of resistance, is 
felt to be more necessarily involved in matter than odor and 
taste; that is, that a permanent force should make this im- 
pression on an organ of sense, seems to us more certain than 
that it should impart a flavor, because, in experience, we 
almost exclusively use this constant and convenient test of 
its presence. This, however, is an empirical distinction, 
arising from the nature of our senses, of an uncertain 
character, and of no particular importance. Solidity al- 
ways involves inference, often rests entirely thereon, and is 
not therefore directly perceived. The distinction then of 
primary qualities, while covering important points in philo- 
sophy, in its common form breaks down. These qualities 
are not more directly perceived than other qualities; they are 
not in contrast with them nor known to be more necessary. If 
we reason from the quality to the substratum, each implies 
this, and the necessity is common and complete. If we 
reason from the substratum to its qualities, no individual 
quality is seen to be necessary, neither any kind nor class 



'jd PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

of qualities as hardness, color. We cannot so penetrate 
the natuie of the cause as to antecedently declare what its 
action will be. The greater constancy of one quality over 
another is learned by experience ; the intrinsic necessity of 
that constancy, if there be any, is unpcrceived. A local 
substance perfectly penetrable, yet having odor, color, and 
flavor, would doubtless be regarded by us g,s matter. If we 
lacked the sense of pressure, this fact would cut off the ac- 
tion of the quality of solidity upon us, but not necessarily 
that of the other qualities of matter. 

Our general doctrine of perception is then confirmed by 
this distinction of qualities so universally made. Purely 
subjective effects are attributed with different degrees of ease, 
frequency, certainty to external causes ; and this attribution 
is confounded with the perception which gives rise to it. The 
perception is subjective, and is expanded, transformed into 
an objective world under intuitive elements and empirical 
inferences. As we open the painting on the canvas into 
the landscape, so we expand instantly, unerringly, habitual- 
ly, the -inner suggestions of the sense, into the reality of 
the outer world. 

§ 8. Consciousness, or the inner sense, the remaining 
means of a direct knowledge of phenomena, requires but 
a brief notice. Our chief difficulty in conceiving this 
source of knowledge, and in speaking of it, is found in the 
language we are compelled to employ, and the confusion 
already occasioned by it. Self-consciousness, or conscious- 
ness, or the inner sense, is not a method of the mind's ac- 
tion, is not a faculty of perception. These words are used 
by us simply to express the fact that the mind knows what 
it does know ; that its states, acts, experiences, are neces- 
sarily open to itself, not by any direct effort or attention on 
its part, but by virtue of the very fact that they are its own 
states. We cannot readily speak of this knowledge which 
the mind has of its own phases of activity, without 



I 



THE INTELLECT PERCEPTION. 77 

seeming to imply more than we intend ; to imply an expli- 
cit form or faculty, or means of kno wing. What we wish 
to draw attention to, then, as a second source of phenome- 
nal matter, is the familiarity of the mind with its own 
thoughts, feelings, volitions ; and hence its power through 
memory to make them objects of attention, inquiry, analy- 
sis. Indeed by these powers primarily is philosophy estab- 
lished, the phenomena of mind separated into their ele- 
ments, and the laws of their combination discovered. Con- 
sciousness furnishes only the bare data of mental facts, the 
perceptions, thoughts present, and is not in the least respon- 
sible for their accuracy. Its verity is only involved in ren- 
dering them as they are, that is, as they lie in the mind. 
Whether we perceive what we think we perceive, whether 
we know what we think we know, that is, the objective just- 
ness of our mental action, these are quite different inqui- 
ries. The subjective state is all that is revealed in conscious- 
ness, and this is revealed by the very nature of mind. 
Concerning it, there is no opportunity for skepticism in the 
very moment of its transpiring ; later the' question is one of 
of memory. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Understanding. 

§ I. The understanding includes all those mental activ- 
ities by which the data of sense are wrought into know- 
ledge ; indeed every intellectual power which is not intui- 
tive. They are memory, imagination, and judgment. 
The first condition of rational activity is perception, some 
object given to the mind toward which it may be moved, 



78 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

with which it may occupy itself. The second essential con- 
dition is memory, by which perceptions, thoughts, gain 
continuity, are united into one experience, are made ready 
to pass over to conviction, to be woven into the fabric of be- 
lief. Without memory our conscious states would be sepa- 
rate, incommunicable, save by direct sequence, with no 
more reciprocal play, unity, and growth, than belong to 
particles of sand. Memory is involved in the coherence of 
intellectual life, as much as the constant inter-action, the 
mutual and permanent influence of its organs are included 
in physical life. Memory is the power of recalling the phe- 
nomena of consciousness. The experiences of the past are 
restored to the mind, by this faculty, with a recognition of 
their previous existence. Like all primitive powers, it has 
its own simple, unique action explained only by experience. 
The words retaining, recalling, may, through the force 
they have acquired in physical connections, suggest the 
idea that some impression of the objects remembered is 
held in the mind, and again restored to its observation ; or 
that some trace or result of the first act remains with the 
mind, waiting renewal in memory. Indeed, looking 
more at the material suggestions and illustrations of mental 
phenomena, than at the simple, primitive, inexplicable char- 
acter of the act of recollection itself, some have inquired, 
whether the very thing first known is the object of mem- 
ory, or whether the mind is occupied with some image of 
it.? We might as well inquire whether the artist's concep- 
tion of a painting is the very painting itself, or an image of 
it ? It is certainly not the first, nor even the second in any 
other than a figurative sense. When I say that I recollect 
an event, my language is about as intelligible as it can be 
made. There is in it a direct appeal to the interpretation of 
every one's experience, furnishing like simple, separate, orig- 
inal acts. In memory a new impression of the event is pres- 
ent, accompanied with a knowledge of its previous presence. 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 79 

It is merely a futile struggle with physical images, the mis- 
leading effect of physical analogies, which prompt us to in- 
quire with an analysis more cunning than cognizant of the 
true conditions of mental experience, Whether, as our 
language seems to imply, we actually remember the very 
object that has passed away, or, whether some impression 
of it is restored to us ? Each act of memory, is a primitive 
distinct act, efficient in itself for its own independent and pe- 
culiar end ; is moreover purely subjective, though often in- 
volving a knowledge of the objective. Memory is not a re- 
peated experience ; it is the cognizance of a previous expe- 
rience without repetition. The renewal of awakened action 
in the brain, if it could be shown to accompany recollection, 
would be no explanation of it. Of a like character are all 
the explanations of memory, which spring from purely 
physiological facts. Whatever may be the effect of think- 
ing on the brain, the connection of these physical changes 
in a physical agent, with the act of memory, is wholly unin- 
telligible. I might as well explain the recollection of a 
sword-wound, by the presence of a scar on the body, as by 
any changes effected at the time in the brain by the suffering 
then experienced. That a scar constitutes memory, is as 
apprehensible as that a modification of a nervous tissue, or 
substance, is memory. It is a fact, that memory, like other 
intellectual powers, is dependent for its exercise on the" con- 
ditions of the brain, but why, or how dependent, are quer- 
ies beyond the circle of knowledge. The vital play of ner- 
vous fluids along nervous lines is one thing, the action of 
the mind a totally different thing. The one is learned as 
an outside fact by outside observations, the other as an 
inside fact by consciousness. The synchronism of the two 
is an interesting point, but one for the present, barren in 
philosophy. 

That memory is more dependent than our other mental 
powers on physical states is generally believed, though we 



8o . PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY, 

may be easily deceived in the grounds of this judgment. 
Memory is readily and quickly tested in its strength. A 
straight-forward, categorical question betrays at once its 
weakness. We observe, therefore, failure at this point, 
more certainly than at others. In moments of weariness 
the memory fails us, but so, evidently, does the judgment. 
Obstacles seem disproportionately great, the occasions of 
fear unusual and pressing. In old age, memory is said 
to be the first faculty that shows decay ; yet the old man, 
withdrawn from active life, naturally first discovers his fail- 
ure here. It requires occasions of judgment to disclose the 
deficiency of judgment to others, while to ourselves, these 
failures are not betrayed from the very fact that the judg- 
ment, as weak, does not detect its own weakness. On the 
other hand, a dozen events eveiy day expose inevitably and 
unmistakably the defects of memor}^ Moreover the things 
chiefly forgotten are those of recent occurrence, a fact ac- 
counted for by the want of strong feeling, clear perception, 
and energetic attention. Diseases that weaken the memory 
by the destruction of brain-tissue, are especially unfavorable 
to the recollection of events that occurred in the periods im- 
mediately previous to the sickness. Remote events may 
be retained with distinctness, while those of intervening 
years are wiped away. These facts go to show that physi- 
ology is not prepared, I will not say to offer an explanation 
of the phenomena of memory, but even to point out with 
certainty and fullness the changes in the brain co-incident 
with the changes of this power. A general dependence of 
all our powers on the vigor of this, their common instru- 
• ment, is the brief summation of its knowledge. Language 
like the following, conveys no intelligible idea : "All that 
has so far been said respecting the different nervous. centers 
of the body cannot fail to demonstrate the existence of 
memory in the nervous cells which lie scattered in the heart, 
in the intestinal walls, in those that are collected together in 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 8 1 

» 

the spinal cord, in the cells of the sensory and motor gang- 
lia, and in the ideational cells of the cortical layers of the 
cerebral hemispheres. " — Maudsley's Physiology and Pathology 
of the Mind, p. 182. 

What a famous stroke of explication — " ideational cells !" 
What a liberal distribution of recollection from the sole of 
one's foot to the crown of his head ! Surely forgetfulness 
is inexcusable under such endowments. 

§ 2. There are other theories of memory not so crude 
as these physiological ones, yet as deficient in proof, and 
resting back almost equally though somewhat more subtle- 
ly on physical analogies. Of this character is that one 
elaborately and repeatedly enforced by Hamilton. He af- 
firms "that an energy of mind being once determined, it 
is natural that it should persist, until again annihilated by 
other causes. This in fact would be the case were the 
mind merely passive in the impression it receives ; for It is 
a universal law of nature, that every effect endures as long 
as it is not modified or opposed by any other effect. But 
the mental activity, the act of knowledge of which I now 
speak, is more than this ; it is an energy of the self-active 
power of a subject, one and indivisible ; consequently a 
part of the ego must be detached or annihilated, if a cogni- 
tion once existive be again extinguished. Hence it is, that 
the problem most difficult of solution is not, how a mental 
activity endures, but how it ever vanishes. " Is not this no- 
tion of the necessary persistence of force, of activity, refer- 
able exclusively to physical forces .? What is the proof of 
its applicability to mental action } The facts of mind in- 
quired into on their own basis, seem to indicate quite the 
opposite conclusion. He proceeds : " If it be impossible 
that an energy of mind that has once been, should be 
abolished without a laceration of the vital unity of the mind, 
one and indivisible, — on this supposition, the question 



82 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

arises, How can the facts of our self-consciousness be 
brought to harmonize with this statement, seeing that con- 
sciousness proves to us that cognitions once clear and vivid 
are forgotten ? The solution of this problem is to be 
sought for, in the theory of obscure or latent modifications. 
The disappearance of internal enorgies from the view of 
internal perception does not warrant the conclusion that they 
no longer exist." "All the cognitions which we possess, 
or have possessed, still remain to us — the whole comple- 
ment of all our knowledge still lies in our memory ; but as 
new cognitions are continually pressing in upon the old, 
and continually taking place along with them among the 
modifications of the ego ; the old cognitions, unless from 
time to time refreshed and brought forward, are driven back, 
and become gradually fainter and more obscure. The 
mind is only capable at any one moment of exerting a cer- 
tain quantity or degree of force. This quantity must 
therefore be divided among the different activities, so that 
each has only a part, and the sum of force belonging to all 
the several activities taken together, is equal to the quantity 
or degree of force belonging to the vital activity of mind in 
general. This obscuration can be conceived in every in- 
finite degree, between incipient latescence and irrecover- 
able latency. The obscure cognition may exist simply out 
of consciousness, so that it can be recalled by a common 
act of reminiscence. Again, it may be impossible to re- 
cover it by an act of voluntary recollection, but some asso- 
ciation may revivify it enough to make it flash after a long 
oblivion into consciousness. Further, it may be obscured 
so far that it can only be resuscitated by some morbid affec- 
tion of the system ; or finally, it may be absolutely lost for 
us in this life, and destined only for our reminiscence in 
the life to come." 

The view, whose salient points with large omissions are 
here indicated, is purely theoretical, is beset with internal 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 8^ 

difficulties, and is unable to explain the phenomena that 
call it forth. It is purely theoretical, for its alleged facts 
all lie in the unapproachable region of sub-consciousness, 
whose existence is not established, much less the de- 
tails of its phenomena. It is vexed with difficulties of its 
own, greater than the difficulties it is brought forward to re- 
move. It rests on a physical idea of force, but cannot con- 
sistently carry out that idea. If no force, no activity can 
be lost, how shall an act of mind fade out of consciousness } 
What is this fading away, if it be not a loss of force .? Or, 
again, if the mind have but a given amount of force to be- 
stow, and each act takes a portion, how long will it be be- 
fore its stock of power will be exhausted .? Or, if this 
power is divided up into a multiplicity of acts', and previous 
acts therefore are weakened in their impressions, does not 
this imply a withdrawal in part of activity, attention, inter- 
est, from earlier actions, and if a partial withdrawal is pos- 
sible, what renders complete removal impossible ? Again, 
what is meant by recalling an obscure cognition ?. Is it 
simply infusing more power into it, deepenmg the action 
already present, or, is it a new act of mind by which we di- 
rect attention to it, and bring it to the light ? Must this 
new act also, in turn, subsist forever, still farther sub-divid- 
ing the power of the mind ? These and many like ques- 
tions are pertinent to this semi-physical theory, and show it 
to be unintelligible, not to say preposterous. It has no co- 
herence and completeness in itself 

Nor does it explain the difficulties which the facts of 
memory present, and which call it forth. Indeed, these 
-phenomena are every way more comprehensible than the 
solution of them here offered. The act of recollection, re- 
suscitation still remains, and is certainly no more intelligi- 
ble because we suppose somewhere, in some out of sight 
region ot the mind, is lurking a previous act, which this new 
one fastens upon and brings forward. What relation do these 



84 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

distinct co-existing acts, the recalling and the recalled, the 
captor and the captive, bear to each other ? How do they 
together constitute memor)' ? Recollection seems to be as 
single, simple, pure an effort of mind, as perception or 
thought in the first instance. There is no occasion, because 
memory is an act of recollection, to put either in the mind or 
out of the mind, in an independent self-existent form, the 
exact thing recollected. A dead man can be remembered 
as easily as a living one, a defunct thought as readily as one 
that has not passed away. Indeed, we do not see why any 
other needs to be recalled. So far as the act has not passed 
from consciousness, it calls for no reminiscence ; so far as it 
has, it is lost to the mind, and the power to restore it in- 
volves the whole mystery. These words, restore, recall, 
resuscitate, are not to be allowed to mislead us by their phy- 
sical imagery. The state recalled exists alone, exists anew 
in the primitive, simple, inexplicable act of memory ; a 
movement of mind as much of its own kind, and with its 
own force, as the first act of perception ; and as indepen- 
dent, save that the occasion for it is found in the existence 
of previous states of consciousness. If acts of mind could 
be shown to be fire-flies passing from light into darkness, 
and darkness into light, with patient and inexhaustible alter- 
nations, it might be to the purpose ; but if there must still 
be a distinct act of recollection, either to go in search of 
other acts and restore them, or when they are present to re- 
mind us of their previous presence, such an act involves 
the entire difficulty, and to be really anything, it must be 
a fresh handling of an old topic, differing from the first in 
that the mind knows it to be a second state of conscious- 
ness, and subject to the conditions of such a state. To re- 
experience sensations and recollect them, are quite different 
things. Much is written concerning the last, which at 
most would be applicable to the first only. A peculiar, 
piimitive power is present in memory as in every other act 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 8$ 

of mind, and as a simple act, it admits and calls for no ex- 
planation. To foist on such states of consciousness, ulti- 
mate and complete in themselves, cumbersome, conjectural 
analogical explanations, is to make the simple and plain, 
complex and obscure, is to darken counsel with words. If 
we would let memory alone, it would be more intelligible. 
To create difficulties by the introduction of physical ana-* 
logics into a field alien to them, and to seek their explica- 
tions by a farther importation of imaginary states, is a pal- 
pable violation of the principle of original, simple induc- 
tion in each department of inquiry. It is a most vicious 
a priori method, disguised under the form of analogical, ex- 
perimental investigation. 

§ 3. We need to distinguish memory from certain 
things with which it is in result allied. Association may re- 
store facts to the mind with no direct effort of recollection, 
indeed, in hours of idle revery, with scarcely a distinct ob- 
servation of their previous presence. This indolent flow of 
thought, mingling past, present, future, blending the real 
and the fanciful, submitting Itself to the native cohesion 
of events and desires, is remembering, precisely as it is 
thinking. It is neither the one nor the other, consecutively, 
tensely, clearly ; but is merely a succession of mental 
movements, holding on to each other, under a feeble impulse 
of pleasure, by accidental connections of thought, memory, 
fancy, acting the part of nimble servitors in this feast and re- 
pose of the desires. Association in large part rests upon mem- 
ory, yet this easy natural movement of the mind, in certain 
trails of imagery, of thought, of recollection, which have been 
established by previous experience, serves to disguise the 
action of memory which underlies it. A certain sequence 
of impressions may be the result of many previous examples, 
yet directly recall no one of them, when, in the lazy flow of 
thought, the mind, the fancy, passes this way, using once 
more groups of conceptions which the entire past life has 



86 ■ PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

been combining. Much therefore rests upon memory in 
which its action is so far from being prominent, that its 
presence is hardly discerned. Much is thought to be original 
which is not so, because the memory has restored it stripped 
of the time, place and circumstances of its acquisition. 

Habit, incorporated into the body, an education of the 
muscles, an immediate connection of sensible nervous im- 
pressions with action, involuntary movement voluntarily es- 
tablished, a permanent union by repetition of certain states 
with certain acts, often closely unites itself with memor}'. 
Words which have been very frequently uttered in a fixed 
order, can be repeated with a rapidity and slightness of at- 
tention which hide the act of memor)^ We are said to 
recite them by rote. There is here doubtless muscular 
training as well as recollection. The facility gained in any 
lengthy process by repetition, is of this double character. 
The memory itself, however, seems in most cases to require 
the lapse of a certain time, and a certain frequency of re- 
currence, to make its action rapid and spontaneous. We 
readily repeat in the morning, what was recited with diffi- 
culty the evening before, and few can acquire a piece for 
easy, accurate rehearsal in the period immediately preceding 
its deliver}'. The same effort, scattered through several 
days, is far more effectual. 

The growth of the mind is also to be distinguished in its 
effects from the action of memor)'. Mental phenomena 
are so blended, that the predominant is by no means the 
exclusive element. Later movements of mind are not mere 
counterparts of earlier ones. A better grasp of premises, 
and more insight into them ; conclusions more complete 
and decided belong to the thinking powers, as they are 
strengthened and enlarged by use. This fact of growth is 
an ultimate one. We know it, and through familiarity it 
seems simple to us without our understanding its grounds. 
It is something more than memory. We are not merely 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 87 

wiser, with more acquired knowledge : we are stronger, able 
to make an increasingly effective use of what we know. 
Memory and growth are very closely related. The accumu- 
lated stores of the mind are the condition of its expanded 
action, and this increased action gives new significance to 
its acquisitions. It is not easy to say how far present 
soundness and shrewdness of judgment are the product of 
increased strength, and how far of increased knowledge. 
Our reasoning powers, by easily evolving conclusions from 
premises, by renewing, rather than by recalling previous 
processes of thought, may closely resemble the memory in 
their action. We may seem to recollect an argument, to re- 
member a proposition when in fact we are merely tracing again 
the steps of reasoning of which it is constructed. Histori- 
cal facts also, as our information is enlarged, cluster together, 
and are held in the mind with less tension of memory than 
while they remained comparatively few and scattered. A 
knowledge of their dependencies enables us to reach one 
from another, to mingle reasoning with memory, and hold 
the entire group by the double ties of deduction and recol- 
lection. 

Memory is the simple power of recalling the past in our 
intellectual experience. We have no occasion for the 
double division of a conservative and a reproductive power. 
We know nothing qf any conservation save as we choose to 
infer it from reproduction. The first, without the last, can 
give no ground of inference, even, wherewith to establish its 
existence. Reproduction is the only process that comes 
under our observation. We do know that the mind recalls 
its previous states, but how this is done, or whence these 
states come, are inquiries either impossible of answer, or 
impertinent to the subject. Indeed, the tendency to ask 
them, we regard as an unphilosophical one, pushing back 
of simple ultimate action, and this under the analogies of 
the material world. Of course those who enter on the 



eb PRIXCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

wholly theoretical ground of the manner of the mind's pos- 
sessing its phenomena, may find occasion for a theoretical, 
conservative faculty, to do the theoretical work assigned it. 
Of the presence and action of such a faculty, we directly 
know nothing, and find its existence a matter of inference. 

If then we confine our attention to actual phenomena of 
mind, and believe it quite as intelligible that the mind 
should repeat states in the interim unexistent, as to recall 
states that have passed by, sunk down into subconsciousness, 
hidden themselves, in some reservoir region of defunct 
ghostly impressions, we have only occasion for one, to wit : 
the reproductive faculty. What becomes of a thought after 
we cease to think it, of a feeling after w'e cease to feel it ? 
From what quarter of the universe do they return to us 
when recollected ? are inquiries whose only gleam of 
meaning comes to them from material fancies. A power, 
that should simply hold without being able to recall facts, 
would be an odd power, a power not powerful enough to 
show its own existence, an activity too indolent to give the 
least scintillation wherewith to indicate its whereabouts ; a 
ridiculous and gratuitous facult}-. 

§ 4. The two qualities of a good memor}- are strength 
and quickness. These are by some said to be separable, 
to exist in various degrees in different persons. Is not this 
conclusion somewhat akin to the double division of the 
power, and does it not arise from not directing attention 
exclusively to the action of memory .-' A strong memory is 
a quick memor}^, and a quick memory is so far forth a strong, 
retentive one. We sometimes fully recall things which at 
first we could not remember, the mind struggling with ob- 
scure recollections till the facts one by one come to the 
light. This result is only partially the fruit of memory ; it is 
largely reached by reasoning, by closely questioning the 
facts that are retained, and making them witnesses for the 
recovery of the remainder. When the reflective, philoso • 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 89 

phical habit of mind predominates, memory may have the 
appearance of retentiveness without celerity; but it is an 
appearance rather than a fact. The weakness of the mem- 
ory is covered by the strength of the elaborative faculty, and 
results are at length reached which the memory vouches 
for, but could not alone have plucked from oblivion. The 
action of simple memory is aided by other powers and facts 
of mind. Our reminiscence fails us, and we strive to 
grapple the lost fact by inference. We say it must have 
been so and so, because these were the preceding causes, 
and these the accompanying circumstances. A clue thus 
given to recollection, the detached fact lays aside its dis- 
guise, comes forth from its hiding-place, and confesses it- 
self found. Or the mind keeps in the region of the lost 
fact. It directs its attention to every resembling or adjunct 
object, hoping by the thread of association to restore to con- 
sciousness the furtive event. The mind thus, in the weak- 
ness of memory, avails itself of the logical cohesion of 
thought, betakes itself from one position to another, lingers 
in the neighborhood of the lurking impression, to see if 
from some vantage-ground, from some sudden disclosure, 
the memory may not again seize it. This, however, is not 
recollecting, it is trying to recollect, bringing other powers 
and attitudes of the mind to the assistance of memory. 
Such a memory is neither strong nor quick. 

Memory presents different phases of power. Some. per- 
sons recall one class of things easily, other persons another 
class. Some have a verbal memory, while others are very 
deficient in this respect, finding it perhaps much easier to 
-retain figures than names. The idea alone is treasured by 
one mind, while the exact expression is borne away by an- 
other. These variations seem chiefly due to different de- 
grees of strength, and the different degrees of interest at- 
tendant on diversity of powers. The memory that refuses 
to retain the precise language is relatively a feeble one, 



90 - PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

while the thought itself is lodged in the mind as much by 
the force of the truth, by logical connections, by the inter- 
est of the statement, as by mere recollection. The power 
of recalling words, especially proper names, is a chief test 
of the strength of memory, since these, detached from all 
connection, are thrown as a dead weight on the mind. 
Weakness of memory may sometimes exist in connection^ 
with considerable ease in the retention of figures, since a 
mathematical habit of mind and general interest and power 
in this department may concentrate attention on its data, 
and increase the ability to retain them. The diverse forms 
are chiefly to be ascribed to diverse tastes and habits, and 
the interest and attention which accompany them, A ten- 
dency once established toward a given pursuit, reacts strong- 
ly on all the faculties engaged in it, making them peculiarly 
vigorous and effective in that direction. 

Though memory looks for aid to all those mental powers 
which unite and correlate ideas, it is by no means depend- 
ent on them. The most vigorous and characteristic efforts 
are almost wholly independent of association. It is when 
its native direct strength fails, that association comes pro- 
minently forward. If the memory could act always with 
entire vigor, it would pick up at random, by any arbi- 
trary, momentary law, the facts of past experience, not col- 
locating them by any of the accepted connections of thought. 
This, in cases of rare power, it freely does. A person has 
been found, who, after a single rehearsal, could relate thou- 
sands of words thrown promiscuously together, could re- 
peat them backward, could recite every fifth, sixth, eighth 
word, could deal with them exactly as if they lay before the 
eye Herein is the perfect, the typical power of memory,' 
and it derives no assistance from association. Even when 
the influence of association is most manifest, it is only the 
order of the conceptions which can be accounted for by it, 
not their actual recollection or restitution to the mind. 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 9 1 

The power to do this work still remains simple and primi- 
tive. We need, therefore, no doctrine of latent states to 
account for the remote character of two facts reported by 
the memory ; nor a belief in a great crowd of thoughts, al- 
ways present to the mind, of only a small number of which 
we are distinctly conscious, in order to explain the celerity 
with which memory produces an appropriate event, or mat-' 
ter pertinent to our state of mind, or to the argument in 
hand. The conception that the memory has already par- 
tially evoked from limbo a great crowd of facts, and is mov- 
ing among them as so many personse dramatis, making 
ready by various laws of association to produce the next fit 
player on the open stage of consciousness, entirely tran- 
scends the facts, is no more intelligible, is not so simple, as 
the statement nakedly accepted, that memory, under the 
suggestion of a direct question put by a stranger, or at the 
intimation of the thoughts with which the mind itself is oc- 
cupied, can directly reach and repeat pertinent previous ex- 
periences, and thus enable us to regain, without constantly 
maintaining, former phases of activity. In most of the con- 
nections of association, there is no potency whatever where- 
with to restore a missing member, except as memory gives 
them that potency. Many of these connections are only an 
application to the objects recollected of those general, regu- 
lative, intuitive ideas, from which these, no more than the 
facts themselves, can wholly escape. If I recall every fifth 
word in a list of names, I do indeed locate them in space, 
or in time, in oider to distinguish which is fifth ; but this 
arises simply from a necessary law of mind, and by no 
means establishes a link, an association between these 
words, explaining my power to recall them, or, why I recall 
them. The connection has been accidentally, externally 
suggested to me, and by an efficient act, an act of memory, 
I am able to apply it, to discern the fifth word, and bring it 
to the lips. There is here only one of those tenuous 



gil PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

threads of connection which must lie between all things un- 
der the general, inclusive ideas of the mind; and it is not in 
the least explicable of the power by which I thread upon it 
these detached, separately complete facts. Memory under- 
lies association, more frequently than association memory. 
I may be aided in recalling an event through the connection 
of causation, but the relations in time and space, are made 
effective associations only through memory. 

Strength of memory depends much on original endow- 
ment, though this faculty is as readily cultivated as any of 
our powers. It comes to do what we patiently insist on its 
doing. The acquisition of a few names in botany or in orni- 
thology may at the outset be very difficult, yet in the end 
memory may retain many hundreds with comparative ease. 
In extemporary discourse the line of thought comes by 
practice to be recalled with scarcely an effort ; yet when the 
occasion has passed, it at once and entirely slips from the 
mind. To insist early and strenuously on the tasks assigned 
the memory is necessary to its efliciency. Yet in spite of 
cultivation, there will be very striking differences in this 
power. Some will retain lengthy discourses, after one or 
two readings, while others can scarcely repeat with accura- 
cy the shortest production. 

A powerful memory is a great aid to other faculties, 
though its strength does not seem necessarily connected 
with the strength of any portion of our intellectual endow- 
ments. Memory is liable to usurp the office of reflection, 
and to overshadow the native growth of the mind with the. 
luxuriant products of other intellects. Indeed, there come 
.^these compensations to a memory comparatively weak, that 
we are thrown back more habitually on our own resources ; 
that the thoughts find free play, the statements of others on 
the same subject, and their methods of treatment not being 
vividly present ; and that we make all ac(}uisitions minister 
to the vigor and growth of thought, to its nutritive processes 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 93 

rather than to those formal possessions which are held in a 
somewhat lifeless way in the memory. We are thus com- 
pelled to enlarge and develop our resources by consump- 
tion and redigestion rather than by retention. Yet with a 
truly vigorous mind, that cannot be overborne and bur- 
dened by the thoughts of others, a strong memory is a most 
valuable power. 

§ 5. The second faculty belonging to the understanding is 
that of imagination. By the imagination we mean the pow- 
er which the mind has of presenting to itself vividly all 
phenomenal forms. Whatever has assumed, or is capa- 
ble of assuming, this phenomenal character, whether in 
the external or internal world, is an object of imagination. 
A landscape, a melody, a state of consciousness, a charac- 
ter may all be imagined, that is vividly presented to the 
mind under their own appropriate forms. As sight is the 
most full, elaborate and distinct of the senses, giving many 
particulars, and cutting them apart by sharp outlines ; the 
pictures which arise under this form of perception are es- 
pecially clear and impressive, and hence have given the 
name imagination to the faculty which paints them, and 
have furnished the general type of its action. Nothing how- 
ever seems unapproachable to the imagination which is 
capable of phenomenal existence, that is, of appearing 
and hence reappearing in consciousness. Thought, let it be 
observed, enters "the imagination as it enters consciousness, 
merely as phenomenon. The moment we begin to think, 
that is to judge, we renew thought as a fact, and do not 
restore it as an image. 

Imagination is simply a general, representative power, 
and cannot therefore work alone without working at ran- 
dom. The powers which direct it, which employ it in 
their service, are memory, appetite, fear, desire, the aesthe- 
tic and the moral taste. 

By its aid we restore vividly, that is under a living form, 



94 PRINXIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the past ; we intensify the present, filling it with the imag 
ery of pleasure ; we reach toward the possible, the future, 
in a higher conception of achievement and character. Im- 
agination is so blended with memory in a portion of its 
action, that we should hardly separate the two, were it not 
for other fields independent of recollection on which it en- 
ters. It, like memor)', is instrumental, and waits the use 
and guidance of other faculties. 

§ 6. A theor)'^ of the imagination accepted by philoso- 
phers so diverse as Hamilton and Bain, is expressed by the 
latter in these words : 

' ' The renewed feeling occupies the very same parts ^ and in 
the same manner as the original feeling, and no other parts, 
nor in any other manner that can be assigned." (The Senses 
and Intellect, page 344.) " The imagination of visible ob- 
jects is a process of seeing. The musician's imagination 
is hearing, the phantasies of the cook and gourmand tickle 
the palate. " ( Page 352.) 

The statement of Hamilton is not so unqualified, and to 
that degree less objectionable. Both of them, however, go 
much beyond our knowledge. When a statement so purely 
theoretical as this explicit, italicized dogma of Bain's, is 
made the foundation of a complete explanation of the fac- 
ulty involved, an explanation resting entirely upon its 
truth, we see that metaphysicians of the old school are not 
the only ones who can put foot in air, and mount to the 
stars. An act of imagination and memory thus becomes 
with the latter another — as indicated by the clause, 
" nor in any other manner" — unmodified perception, lin- 
gering or reawakened in the organ of sense. 

The proof of their explicit assertions, is found by Bain 
and Hamilton in the fact, that the organs of action are evi- 
dently affected by the images present to the mind in imag- 
ination as they would be by the objects themselves, only in 
a less degree, and that with a loss of any of the senses the 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 95 

power of imagination disappears in a corresponding direc- 
tion. The examples adduced under the first argument are 
of a kind not leading directly to the conclusion in issue ; 
but are quite as explicable on other grounds. "A dog 
dreaming sets his feet a going, and sometimes barks." 
"Some persons of weak nerves can scarcely think with- 
out muttering — they talk to themselves." "Anger takes 
exactly the same course in the system, whether it be at a 
person present, or at some one remembered or imagined." 
Suppose our fancies to'be pure intellectual acts, indepen- 
dent of the senses, and should we not expect these results ? 
The nervous flow outward on the active, related powers 
would naturally be secured, though the senses were quies- 
cent, if the intermediate, active state of mind were present. 
These examples furnish no proof, that the organs of per- 
ception are affected, and are the source of this tendency to 
movement. 

Farther examples are quoted from Miiller. " The mere 
idea of a nauseous taste can excite the sensation even to the 
production of vomiting. " We think the more correct state- 
ment would have been, the mere idea of a nauseous taste 
can produce vomiting. In this form, it loses all pertinence as 
proof The active results follow from the idea, the action 
in the brain, and not from the sensation. We do not in 
such cases suppose that we taste the disgusting food, but 
only that we conceive its taste. ' ' The mere sight of a per- 
son about to pass a sharp instrument over glass or porce- 
lain, is sufficient, as Darwin remarks, to excite the well- 
known sensation in the teeth. " 

Now the setting of the teeth on edge, is an effect of ner- 
vous action, and may as fitly follow that action when com- 
ing in connection with the imagination, as when occasioned 
by the senses. The fact that fancy affects the nervous sys- 
tem, and hence the muscular system, in a manner alien to 



gS - PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

that of the senses, no more proves the identity of imagina- 
tion and sensation, than a fright at a ghost, proves the ex- 
istence of a ghost. These examples do not reach deep 
enough to do the work required of them. They only show 
the results to be in a manner the same, whether the object 
be imagined or perceived, whether the initiative is from 
within or from without : whereas they ought to show the 
organs of sense so affected in what we call imagination as 
to be a sufficient cause of the effects which follow. Against 
this, mental and physical experience testify. We distin- 
guish easily between acts of imagination and perception, 
both in the character and locality of the activity. We ob- 
serve, also, that the action occasioned by the images of 
fancy in others, is slight and ineffectual when contrasted 
with the results of real perception. 

Neither do we find that that which paralyzes the organ 
of sense, necessarily and immediately destroys the power to 
imagine objects which enter through that sense. A deaf 
Beethoven can compose music, a blind Milton, blind by 
disease of the nerve, can write an epic. That there 
should be a slow decay of the imagination in connection 
with the early loss of a sense is natural, almost inevitable. 
The requisite material ceases to be presented to the mind ; 
present possessions, impressions, fade out, and the objects 
of the remaining senses usurp the place of the lost sense. 
The doctrine, as stated above, would require that blindness, 
when an affection of the nerve, should be followed by the 
instant and entire loss of the images of visible objects. 
The facts signally contradict the theory, and the theory 
fails. The blind man deals with all the imagery of the 
eye, walks the streets, and uses, to the full, the language of 
vision. Indeed, in the strict form in which it is stated, 
this dogma approaches an absurdity. If I imagine a visual 
object on the retina of the eye, '' in the same manner " in 
which I see it, my imagination should be confined to the 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 97 

open eye, and be identical with objects actually seen. 
Otherwise it must be conceded, that in one case the agency 
affecting the retina acts from without, and in the other 
from within ; in itself a grave difference. The imagination 
of feelings, tastes, odors, should also be as clear and deci- 
sive as the conception of the objects of sight. Quite the re- 
verse is true, a fact entirely intelligible, on the ground 
that imagination is an intellectual power, independent of 
the organs of sense ; as the intellectual element decidedly 
predominates in sight, while the lower senses are single and 
emotional in their character, and thus yield less matter to 
the fancy. We take a certain pleasure in drawing attention 
to the airy strides of one who so thoroughly sympathizes, 
as does Bain, with Positive Philosophy. Having ourselves 
no theory to sustain, not having set to ourselves the task 
of preparing the way for the insensible growth of intellec- 
tual out of physical phenomena, we can accept the im- 
pression of consciousness, that an act of imagination is one 
of imagination, quite distinct and distinguishable from 
every form of perception, clear or obscure. We feel no 
more interest in discussing imagination under perception, 
than perception under imagination. In honest induction, 
we can take what we find. Nor is the intelligibility of our 
philosophy any the less in thus regarding the mind as an 
independent first cause of its own action, than in filling it with 
echoes, and mild vibrations, and the lingering, trembling, 
sobbing, swelling cadences of sensation, as of a harp, unable 
to part with the harmony that has once run along its strings. 
These transferred, translated analogies are the most inex- 
plicable of all explications. Mind and matter present 
plain phenomena, each in its own way cognizable ; but 
mental movements that are semi-physical, and physical 
movements that rise into and are productive of thought, 
have no organ whatever for their apprehension. Seen with the 
eye, they become purely material ; known by consciousness, 



98 - PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

they become at once and completely transcendental. Two 
things known as unlike, each by its own faculty, are far 
better known than when affirmed to be alike, with no basis 
or common ground, or common origin for their com- 
parison. 

§ 7. Whatever is thought of the nature of imagination, 
its influence and office are not doubtful. It is a great in- 
tensifier of emotions. Acting under the impulse of desire, 
it brings vividly forward the means of gratification, and 
kindles the passions into a flame. The mind, occupied by 
furious lusts, becomes, till imagery is displaced by reality, 
the lodgment of a Tantalus. Unreal phantoms provoke the 
eye, stimulate the appetites, and, in the grasping, sink back 
into tormenting shadows. The mind is consumed momen- 
tarily in the red heat of its own passions, which it can nei- 
ther quell by authority, nor quench by indulgence. Mis- 
ery in all forms uses the imagination as a means wherewith 
to irritate and exasperate itself Discouragement and fear 
evoke troubles beyond the reality. Not only is the ship 
battered by the waves about it — the vista of a yet more an- 
gry ocean is opened up, and it plunges on from shock to 
shock, the heart sinking in despair more in view of what is 
to be, than of what is. Disappointment aggravates the 
evils it suff"ers, by exaggerated pictures of the good to have 
been attained. One feels the heat of the desert, and thinks 
of cooling streams. 

On the other hand, pleasure owes its hilarity, its intoxi- 
cation very much to the imagination. It spreads the rosy 
blithesome atmosphere of the present to the very horizon, 
and makes the distance gorgeous with a play of light, be- 
yond what approach will verify. The eccentricity, the 
boldness, the poetic inspiration, the enthusiasm of the 
mind find expression and play chiefly in the fancy. By it 
we cease to be roadsters along the regular route of existence ; 
we dart ahead, or fall behind, or turn to the right, or to 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 99 

the left ; we rise upward, tread paths of air, and return 
only at intervals to the actual, where the foot-sore senses 
and judgment are plodding on. 

It is evidently this faculty that is yoked to the car of the 
mind in sleep, and wheels it, in ranging fashion, through 
possible and impossible scenes, through weird imagery, 
recollections interlacing fancies in strange and monstrous ' 
guise. The very fact that the senses find such complete re- 
pose in sleep, while the imagination is so bold, dashing and 
wayward, would seem to indicate that the action of the 
two is far from identical. The same is true in reverie, in day- 
dreaming. The mind closes its senses, takes out these airy 
steeds of fancy, throws the rein on their necks, and gives it- 
self up to the luxury of motion along ways in which the 
friction of ruts, the jar of collisions, the retardation of mud 
are not experienced. 

The imagination also, greatly aids our thoughts. The 
judgment and the fancy, are frequently regarded as faculties 
somewhat opposed to each other in their action. The ease 
and certainty of the first, in some of its most severe 
and logical processes, depends very much on the clearness 
and precision of the second. In solid geometry, in many 
branches of the higher mathematics, in mechanics, in astro- 
nomy, a first condition for the ready and safe movement 
of the thoughts, is a clear conception, an unwavering im- 
age of the solid, or of the objects and their relations, in- 
volved in the problem. If the subject of contemplation 
cannot be easily evoked, and quietly held in the field of 
imagination, the judgment is at once at fault in establishing 
its connections, and gropes in the darkness, like one blind- 
folded. Scientific inquiry also, classification, the tracing 
of analogies, the observation of resemblances, are greatly 
aided by a vivid imagination, presenting distinctly to the 
mind a large circle of objects. The memory is but very par- 
tial in its action without this faculty, and the mind, in the 



lOO PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

weakness of representation, is compelled to take up objects 
singly, to the oversight of dependencies which might fur- 
nish the key of success. The imagination, then, is as es- 
sential to philosophy as to poetry. The difterence lies in 
the two cases, not so much in the number of objects pre- 
sented, as in the manner and purpose of consideration. 

Most immediate and powerful is the influence of the 
imagination on action. The pleasures, disappointments, 
regrets, admonitions of the past, keep company with the 
mind in that living way which makes them effective counsel- 
ors through this faculty ; and, as the wisdom of the pre- 
sent is chiefly the gleanings of the past, our immediate 
purposes its ripened conclusions, the pictures of the fancy 
are as the reflectors which gather the otherwise diff"used, 
fugitive light, and pour it all in on the working-point. 
'But it is in the ideals of action and character, which are al- 
ways distinctly present in noble minds, and hardly wholly 
disappear even with the lowest, that the most constant and 
valuable function of the imagination is seen. Through a 
conception of that which is more desirable in ends, more 
skillful in means, more wise in action, more graceful and 
winning in method, more pure and holy in purpose, more 
benignant and beautiful in presentation ; imagination fur- 
nishes an embodiment of the truth nearest us, becomes an 
angel of light running before us, guiding our steps, scaling 
for us every steep of excellence, dropping back upon us 
words of encouragement and hope. To be destitute of an 
ideal, is to want the best motive of effort, is to lose direction, 
is to lack momentum, is to be dead, passively preyed on by 
the forces that have clutched us. Evil and death admit 
this inertia, goodness and life do not ; and an imagination 
that looks out on fields of light, that opens vistas into the 
paradise of hope, becomes an essential to all high resolve 
and cheerful effort. 

§ 8. The strength of the imagination, aside from original 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 1 01 

gift, depends on exercise. Tliis faculty cannot fail to be 
called forth ; the point of interest is chiefly the direction 
and degree of its employment. When made to minister to 
the judgment chiefly, it seems to be somewhat overshad- 
owed by that graver power, and its action oftentimes 
appears to be less than it really is. Philosophy may be as 
impassioned as poetry. When, on the other hand, the 
fancy is left to construct its imagery at the beck of desire, 
bound down to no useful artistic end, it leaves the 
mind extravagant in its conceptions, wayward and fickle in 
its purposes. Persons characterized by the unguarded, un- 
governed action of this faculty, are inefficient and visionary. 
The most perfect and exclusive training of the imagination, 
is found in the fine arts. Here it is put to its boldest, yet 
most restrained and governed efforts. The sense of the 
beautiful calls it forth, and guides it, and the combined 
vigor and poise of its action, yield the highest works of art, 
the statue, painting, cathedral. The energetic exercise of 
our intellectual power, especially elicit this faculty. All 
forms of expression seek its lustre. 

There is, in this connection, a very misleading use of the 
word conception, to which we wish to draw attention. 
That an idea is conceivable or inconceivable, is constantly 
brought forward in philosophical discussion, as a reason for 
its acceptance or rejection. There are other uses of the 
word to which we shall revert later, but the use which con- 
nects conception with imagination, and calls that conceiva- 
ble which can be imagined, and that inconceivable which 
does not respond to this faculty, is a frequent and deceptive 
one. As the imagination deals only with the phenomenal, 
to say that a thing is in this sense inconceivable, is only to 
say, that it is not of a phenomenal character, not present- 
able in its essence under a phenomenal form. This may 
very well be, and yet the idea be one that is to find accept- 
ance. It may be offered and urged as one that is not phe- 



102 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

nomenal, but is of a direct, intuitive character. _To say of 
such an idea, that it is inconceivable, is simply to restate 
what is avowed, indeed, insisted on concerning it. It is 
the essential character of an inner intuition, that it should 
not be an object, or like an object, of experience, and 
therefore not capable in the fancy of assuming this form. 
In this sense of the word, the truth of a judgment even is*' 
inconceivable. The act of judging is conceivable, the ob- 
jects to which it pertains are conceivable, but the truth itself 
of the judgment is inconceivable. If it were so, we should 
require no judgment. The act of conceiving or imagining, 
would be sufficient, and would include in itself the entire 
process of reaching the truth. The judgment is superadd- 
ed to the imagination for the very reason that new matter is 
and may be amenable to it. Not to be able to conceive a 
thing, is simply not to be able to imagine it, and the field 
of imagination is, in the outset, put down by us as a limit- 
ed one. When, therefore, we are by claim and concession 
talking of that outside of this field, the assertion is not 
pertinent, disproves nothing, that the subject is inconceiv- 
able. Of course it is; if it had not been, we should not 
have offered it as an intuitive notion, a necessary and uni- 
versal idea, but as conforming to our observation. The 
true stroke of overthrow directed against such notions as 
that of liberty, of the infinite, would be they are conceiva- 
ble, and therefore of a phenomenal character, not deeper 
nor more necessary. To say of such ideas, that they are 
inconceivable, and therefore not true, is to make that a 
ground of inference for their non-existence, which is in fact 
the result of their peculiar and permanent character. The 
blind might as well say, colors have no existence, because 
they are neither tastes, odors nor sounds, nor are they con- 
ceivable as such. 

§ 9. The third power of the understanding is judgment. 
This is, in some sense, the most fruitful and important of 



THE UNDERSTANDING. IO3 

all our faculties. To it, the others seem especially to min- 
ister, and, in connection with it, to fulfil their purpose. 
By the judgment we thoughtfully handle, we rationally 
combine and use the material furnished in perception and 
intuition. It is that action of the mind, by which the phe- 
nomena of sense are taken up into the light of reason, 
there interpreted in their necessary relations, and presented 
as a system of things. The judgment is the power by 
which we unite subject and predicate under some appro- 
priate regulative idea. The exact meaning and force of 
this language may not at once be obvious, but will be un- 
folded by farther discussion. 

Abstraction, generalization, conception, synthesis, analy- 
sis, are all processes of thought, requiring no farther, no 
peculiar power, beyond those now mentioned. 

They are the results, the accompaniments, the attendant 
methods of judgment, judiciously employed. The facul- 
ties of perception are not left to perceive all things promis- 
cuously and indiscriminately. The judgment does not 
judge blindly, satisfied with the link of each copulation, 
no matter whether it lies apart, or is united into a chain 
with others. This power is set at work in the service of 
certain impulses, and works therefore consecutively with se- 
lection and rejection, with directed and conjoined effort 
towards the desired results. Separate judgments are thus 
thrown into trains of reasoning, and those judgments 
sought — which can be made the parts of such a train. 
Those objects are considered, and those qualities in each 
objects which are, in the present connection, points of in- 
terest. Agreements are sought as links of thought, to the 
dismission of differences. Thus we have abstraction, the 
separation of one quality or relation in attention from 
every other ; conception in its limited sense, the uniting 
of several qualities under one generic and specific word, to 
the exclusion of individual distinctions ; generalization, 



■ 104 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the detection of one quality, one form of action, one rela- 
tion in many diverse objects ; synthesis, the union of parts 
in a whole ; analysis, the separation of a whole into its 
parts. These, then, as the various methods and fruits of a 
fertile judgment, require no farther attention in a discussion 
of faculties, but belong to logic, which treats of the laws 
of thought, of the several forms of activity which the one 
power, the judgment, assumes. The extent of field, the 
complex results which belong to this faculty, are evinced 
by the fact, that a distinct science is set apart to it, and the 
laws of thinking or judging are discussed in a separate and 
complete form, as logic. 

§ lo. Before proceeding to speak more fully on the ex- 
act office of judgment, I wish to draw attention to one or 
two erroneous views becoming increasingly prevalent con- 
cerning it. Says Sir William Hamilton, "Consciousness, 
necessarily involves a judgment ; and as every act of mind 
is an act of consciousness, every act of mind consequently 
involves a judgment. A consciousness is necessarily the 
consciousness of a determinate something, and we cannot 
be conscious of anything without virtually affirming its ex- 
istence, that is judging it to be. Consciousness is thus 
primarily a judgment or affirmation of existence. '' These as- 
sertions are much too broad, especially so for the philosophy 
of Sir William Hamilton ; that we directly know the object of 
perception as external. All matter in consciousness may 
become a subject of judgments; if it is thought about, it 
must become such a subject. But there is no absolute ne- 
cessity that it should, to the judgment, be made an object of 
* attention ; that this faculty should play upon it; that it 
should more than quietly flow through the organ or sen- 
sation without producing any action of mind beyond sim- 
ple perception. To say that mere, pure perception is a 
judgment, that "consciousness is primarily a judgment," 
is an affirmation wrong in form, since consciousness is the 



THE UNDERSTANDING. IO5 

condition of mental action, and not the action itself; and 
erroneous in idea, since it virtually merges all mental acts 
or powers in one. If perception is primarily a judgment, 
so is feeling, so is memory, since out of each of these acts, 
by the same method, a judgment can easily and instantly 
be concocted. 

Perception as perception is distinct from judgment, and 
may exist without it. There is nothing in the one, which 
necessarily involves the other, which is covered by it; 
though in the rational mind the one gives constant occasion 
to the other. Moments of perception may be moments in 
which objects come and go with no thoughtful attention di- 
rected to them ; they are left to expire in the sensual im- 
pression they are for the instant making. In the case of 
the brute, is not this the habitual attitude of mind, the field 
of consciousness occupied with sensations with no reflection 
on them, or interpretation of them ? Why speak at all of 
the power of perception, if, in later analysis, we purpose to 
resolve it into judgment .? What may instantly spring from 
an act and the act itself are very different. 

What also becomes of Hamilton's doctrine, that "per- 
ception affords us the knowledge of the non-ego at the 
point of sense," under this farther assertion, that "con- 
sciousness, is primarily a judgment or affirmation of exist- 
ence." Is such a judgment involved in the perception of 
an object ? If so, we have not the doctrine of direct, exter- 
nal perception, but rather the view given by us of the ne- 
cessary, inferential existence of the outer world. The two 
views would be identical, save that we do not affirm, that 
each single perception compels, or in that sense involves, 
the formal or actual inference to real, outside existence. It 
only gives a ground or occasion for such conclusion, which 
may, or may not, in a specific case, be made. If, however, 
we do perceive simply and purely " the non-ego at the point 
of sense," then that act of perception or of consciousness is 



I06 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

not a judgment, does not include one as its primary ele- 
ment; or the distinction between judgment and perception 
disappears, and we infer, and do not in the ordinary sense 
perceive, the existence of the external world. If an act of 
perception, as such, gives us, the "non-ego," we find no oc- 
casion for an act of judgment to do the same thing. 

The actuality and externality of the phenomena are al- 
ready present as a fruit of perception. Does not the diffi- 
culty lie here, that Hamilton has given to perception a task 
impossible to it, and then, in later analysis, for a moment 
forgetful of previous assertions, has made it to involve a 
judgment, thereby easing it of its burden, though at the 
same time losing the distinction between these two acts of 
mind? 

A very limited and objectionable statement ofthat in which 
judgment consists, has been much dwelt on by Herbert 
Spencer, and distinctly enunciated by Alexander Bain. 
"What is termed judgment," says he, ''may consist in 
discrimination on the one hand, or in the sense of agree- 
ment on the other : we determine two or more things either 
to differ, or to agree. It is impossible to find any case of 
judging that does not, in the last resort, mean one or other 
of those two essential activities of the intellect." — The Sense 
and the Intellect p. 329. Says Hamilton : "What I have, 
therefore, to prove is, in the first place, tha t comparison is 
supposed in every, the simplest act of knowledge : in the 
second, that our factitiously simple, our factitiously com- 
plex, our abstract, and our generalized notions, are all 
merely so many products of comparison : in the third, that 
judgment, in the fourth, that reasoning, is identical with 
comparison." 

That resemblance, or, stated on both sides, agreement and 
disagreement, is the sole ground of connection between 
subject and predicate in a judgment ; that comparison is 
the only act of mind involved in reasoning, is a conclusion 



THE UNDERSSANDING. lOJ 

quite consonant with a philosophy that derives all the 
data, the conditions, the material of thought from the phe- 
nomenal world, from perception and consciousness ; but is 
wholly af war with a philosophy that accepts those ideas 
which illuminate facts, and makes them intelligible subjects 
of thought, as of supersensual origin, furnished by the mind 
itself, as adjuncts of its comprehending powers. If we deal 
purely with phenomena, we can only compare them, discov- 
er and assert their agreements and disagreements. If, 
then, we do more than this in judgment, this limited state- 
ment should recoil against the system that puts it forth, 
whose ultimate and consistent product it undoubtedly is. 
That all judgments do not rest on resemblance will appear 
in the analysis of the action of the mind in predication — in 
the office which thought performs. 

We believe a judgment always to involve the direct or in- 
direct application of a regulative idea to the phenomena in- 
cluded under it, and this is its peculiar feature and occasion. 
Using an undesirable word, judgment is the rationalizing 
of sensations, it is completing them in thought, through 
those ideas which the mind furnishes in making them ob- 
jects of rational contemplation. The full force and proof 
of this statement cannot be easily seen, previous to a de- 
tailed statement and establishment of these native forms of 
thought ; yet a little analysis may render it intelligible. 
Every single perception admits of a statement, a judgment, 
which is the product of the first action of the thought upon 
it. This statement has no two perceptions to deal with, 
and therefore no ground for a comparison between them. 
^It is simply an application to the phenomenon of a regulative 
idea. The finger is pierced. A single, sharp feeling is 
present. We say, it is painful ; a judgment which, re- 
stated to give its substance distinct expression, becomes, 
pain is. Here the specific experience is taken under the 
general notion of existence, and we call the result a thought, 



100 PRINXIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

a judgment that may be offered to another mind. Between 
the idea of existence, and that of pain, there is no resem- 
blance, for I could have as readily aflirmed it of a pleasure, 
of a color, an odor. This judgment, the type of a large 
class, a step by which any experience whatever receives a 
form of statement, and becomes an intellectual product, is 
bringing to a phenomenon one of the regulative, formative 
notions pertinent to it. 

But I might have said — The pain is one. The pain 
lasts. The pain is here. In each of these cases, I should 
have brought forward a different idea, and affirmed its ap- 
plication in a given form to the sensation. Now, if these 
ideas are themselves previous sensations, then the doc- 
trine that resemblance forms the substance of ever)' judg- 
ment holds good, but not otherwise. If for instance the 
idea of duration, of time, be entirely distinct from the 
whole, and every part of the sensation that evokes it, and 
is ready to be furnished by the mind to each of twenty or 
twenty thousand sensations that endure, in order that they 
may singly or collectively be made intelligible in this rela- 
tion of time, then this judgment — It endures — is one 
whose predicate and subject are totally distinct in kind, re- 
ceived through diverse powers, and united in another rela- 
tion than that of agreement, by a third power. In this ex- 
ample we suppose a master}' of language, which does in- 
deed in its acquisition imply comparison. This fact, how- 
ever, does not weaken the analytic proof, since we can sup- 
pose the judgment to be present without the words to ex- 
press it, or a present mastery of words independent of the 
training which leads to it, is essential to it, though not 
to the very act of judging. The belief which identifies 
comparison and judgment, must make the notion of time 
derivable from a number of sensations ; something in the 
sensations themselves, rendered discernible and comprehen- 
sible by repetition. It would thus follow that a single sen- 



THK UNDERSTANDING. 



109 



sation could not be made the occasion of a judgment, since 
there is in it no opportunity for comparison. It is a unit. 
The mind has nothing to bring to it, and it abides barren in 
the organ of sense alone. The feeling could then no 
more be said to exist, than it could to be unusually intense, 
since both assertions are alike relative. How Hamilton, 
who has given his authority to a statement so alien to the* 
intuitive philosophy, would dispose of the fact, that the 
mind puts a single perception in the form of a judgment, a 
point he especially insists on, going so far as to say, that 
perception necessarily involves judgment, is not evident. 
In the first act of perception, there is no material present 
to the mind, between which to institute the comparison said 
to be involved in the judgment, itself involved in the inci- 
pient perception. To initiate such a movement, he would 
be compelled to make his comparison between the pain 
and the idea of number, the idea of time, the idea of space, 
the idea of existence, and affirm at this point a resemblance, 
a complete abuse of the word comparison. The objects 
compared are unlike in kind, belong to alien fields, and 
do not admit the notion of similar and dissimilar. In fact 
they must admit similarity if either, since the two are cou- 
pled in a conjunctive judgment. Only as we regard the 
time, the unity, the existence, as in some way in and a 
part of the sensation, and also in and a part of the other 
sensations present to the memory, can we make these judg- 
ments examples of comparison. That these ideas cannot 
be thus directly discovered as parts of sensation, as Spen- 
cer, Mill, and others affirm, will be further seen in a later 
discussion. In this first class, then, of judgments, which are 
statements concerning single perceptions, states of con- 
sciousness, it is evident that a regulative idea is united to a 
phenomenon, and the content of the lower organ, so to 
speak, taken up into the intellect. To this class also be- 
long those judgments in which the same idea, existence, 



Ho PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

place, time, number are affirmed of several pheno- 
mena. 

§ 11. Another form of judgment unites two distinct 
objects under a regulative idea. Of this character is the 
statement, This apple is like that apple. Under the no- 
tion of resemblance, two objects, the products of distinct 
sets of sensations, are united. Here the thought-process 
consists in bringing the two together under a comprehending 
form or rational notion. It is to this kind of judgment, that 
Bain and Spencer would analyze all thought, omitting even 
here the essential feature of the act, that a notion is found, 
is intuitively seen by the mind, under which the movement 
goes forward. A sensation is complete and independent in 
itself, and does not necessarily lead to any farther state of 
mind. This it may or may not do, according to its con- 
nections, its relations. In reflex action, so-called, an in- 
ward current, that never affects consciousness, is followed by 
a physical force, by an outer motor current. This inward 
movement may, by its results, that is as a sensation, enter 
consciousness, and may thence go forth in certain, involun- 
tary, automatic action ; or, as a sensation, it may be taken 
into the processes of thought, be merged in the intellectual 
movement, and reappear, if it reappears at all, as a volun- 
tary act, a new and independent impulse. Now the sensa- 
tions occasioned by the presence of two apples, may simply 
and directly, as in the case of a brute, draw forth action ; 
or they may become the occasions of thought, and the in- 
quiry be instituted, whether they are of one kind, or of 
different kinds. For the first result there is necessarily pres- 
^ent appetitive senses; for the second, rationalizing power, 
which is no other than the power to furnish an idea, in this 
case, that of resemblance, under which an inquiry can be 
instituted and a judgment formed. It is the exact office of 
the judgment to apply discriminatingly in reference to an 
end, these notions to the objects before the mind. The sen- 



THE UNDERSTANDING. Ill 

sations, as sensations, are complete. They are not halves ; 
they are not uneasy, nettlesome, looking out for mates ; nor 
adhesive, linked, dragging something after them ; nor are 
they dove-tailed into thoughts, making their succession in- 
evitable. They might lie forever perfectly quiet, nothmg com- 
ing of them, were it not for the appetites below them, into 
which they sink by physical connections ; for the eye of rea- 
son above them, into whose realm of thought they rise, by 
the dropping down upon them of judgments, through tenta- 
tive inquiries prompted by its own perception of invisible, 
unheard, unfelt relations. This working up of sensations, 
this vitalizing of them in processes of thought, needs so- 
lution as much as the activity of chemical elements pre- 
viously dormant, when heat is applied. 
- We know an object as red, as sour, as fragrant, through 
our respective senses of sight, taste, and smell. A judgment 
has nothing to do with this knowledge. The first object 
received in any sense imparts to it, calls forth in it, a form 
of knowing, in itself ultimate and inexplicable. When we 
meet with a second object of a like kind, we have no new 
sensational knowledge ; yet we have an occasion of a judg- 
ment, which we did not have, as regarded the quality, the 
flavor, or odor, or color in the first case. We say of the 
two, They are the same. Now, how happens it that the 
second sensation has in it more than the first, to wit, this oc- 
casion of a judgment.? 

As sensations they are alike ; one is no more stimulating 
than the other, should yield no more than the other. 

The solution lies in the fact, that the mind is able to fur- 
ish an idea, that of agreement and disagreement, infusing 
rational order and relations into a plurality of objects, and 
brings it forward for immediate application, on this, the first 
occasion. Here the judgment finds its function and office 
to run between phenomena, and marshals them under no- 
tions. Of phenomena alone it could make nothing. It 



ri2 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

must have its men, and its plan of rank and regiment, and 
then it can construct an army. 

Of the same character are the judgments, This is high- 
er than that, This event more recent than that. In each 
case, objects of perception are thrown into relation with each 
other, by means of a regulative idea. Many, accepting the 
intuitive nature of the idea of space, would easily recognize' 
the character of the judgment. This house is nearer than 
that mountain, who would yet fail to see the transcendental 
element in the kindred statement, This stone is like 
that rock. Evidently the mind furnishes the ground of the 
judgment, — the idea of the relation, as much in the one 
case as in the other. The present division of judgments in- 
cludes all acts of classification, and is a most numerous 
one. 

The statement, This action is right, may sometimes be 
one of classification, assigning the act by its form to a kind 
or class previously recognized as right. More frequently, 
however, it is a judgment of the first class, in which a single 
act is stated and interpreted under an intuitive notion The 
notion right, is not perceived, organically seen in the action ; 
but brought to it, put as a form upon it, discerned as a spi- 
ritual factor in it. If it had been redness that had belonged 
to the object, the mind must needs have waited for a se- 
cond, thirds fourth instance before it would have said. This 
is red : and then the assertion would have been one simply 
of classification. The perception gives the quality, and the 
judgment remains quiescent till, by repetition, it is called to 
the act of classification. In the case of the right action, 
however, the action enters through the senses without this 
quality, simply and nakedly as an action, and the reason 
bringing forward a farther idea for its explanation as the act 
of an intelligent and free being, the judgment at once finds 
play in applying it, and says. It is a right action. This it 
might do should the mind never know another, if this act 



THE UNDERSTANDING. II3 

in its motives and consequences remained plainly before it. 
In the first class of judgments, one limb of the predication 
rests in the phenomenal, the other passes over into the 
purely intellectual, the transcendental. In the second class, 
both abutments of the arch press back on phenomena, but 
the spring and crown of it rests in the air ; the connection 
strikes into and returns from the region above. 

There is a third class of judgments of which the expres- 
sion. The heat melts the wax, is a type. Here, under the 
notion of causation, we grapple by a judgment that which 
physically exists, yet never directly enters the phenomenal 
world. The mind walks as one who travels on a morass, 
the points of support are hidden a litde below the surface. 
The foot, under the quick suggestion of the eye, and the 
inference of reasoning, dashes at the more stable ground, 
which it never sees, and is yet able to find. The mind 
could not move, did it not believe in causes, yet it never 
sees a cause, or knows one save through the effects con- 
stantly attributed to them, safely expected from them. It 
is not sufficient that the mind should weave the visible into 
a firm fabric of order by invisible connections it alone can 
grasp ; it is made to stand, and must forever stand, and all 
it beholds stand with it, on invisible, intangible supports of 
power, whose existence it can verify by no sense, and must 
leave with its own assured conviction. Deny these supports 
and it must yet seek for them, and believe in them, 
and talk about them every moment of its life. These 
judgments by which we spread the phenomenal over 
the actual, by which we search out the streams of 
, force, and feel the under-flow of divine power, are 
among the most constant and radical of any we ever 
make. It is evident, however, that they do not rest in 
resemblance merely, since the cause is never in any way 
phenomenally known, save through its effects, and there- 
fore furnishes no hold for a comparison. Of course we 



I.I 4 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

mean the actual cause, and not the phenomenal cause, that 
is the effect just previous to the effect under consideration. 
We mean the very heat, and not the taper, which is itself 
in its visible form an effect, and not a cause. In the third 
form of judgment we unite the sensible and the transient, 
to the insensible and permanent, through a pure intuitive 
movement of mind. What was understood to be, also 
understood in relation to other things that are, is now re- 
ferred to hidden sources or causes. It is then the general of- 
fice of judgment to unite the phenomenal and the intuitive, 
the perceptive and the purely intuitional elements of mind 
in the rational apprehension and use of the former. Rea- 
soning is the interlock of these judgments, a chain of 
these conclusions by which remote points are united, and 
discloses therefore no new power. 

§ 12. Before passing from the judgment, we wish to 
mark a second use of the word conceive, leading to further 
obscurity. By a statement, that an idea, for instance 
that of infinity, is inconceivable, is sometimes meant, that 
the judgment cannot grapple it, that it cannot be wrapt 
about, log-chained with logical relations, worked up as ma- 
terial in the processes of thought. Very well ; the judg- 
ment deals with the phenomenal under ideas, and therefore 
a notion not phenomenal, and not calling for the interpre- 
tation of a farther idea, is not material for the judgment. 
The judgment ought not to be able to handle it ; if it were 
able, a phenomenal element would therein appear, destruc- 
tive of its pure emotional character. The query still remains, 
however, whether such an idea may not be validly presented 
to the intuitive power set apart for its apprehension, given to 
perform this service? The inconceivability of a thing may 
be proof of its nature, though not of its reality or want of 
reality. 

We are now able to see something of the relation of the 
understanding to the entire mental furniture, and also of the 



THE UNDERSTANDING. II5 

three powers which compose it to each other. The under- 
standing plays between the intuitive parts of our nature, the 
physical perceptions on the one hand, and the spiritual intu- 
itions on the other. With no absolute, final comprehension 
of either, it interlocks them, and comes to a definite know- 
lege of their relations. This knowledge of connections seems 
to us more satisfactory than that of qualities in perception, or 
of ideas in intuition. We try to make a color, an odor, the 
notion of existence, an object of reflection, and can do little 
or nothing with it. As simple and primitive, it eludes those 
relations which we are so diligent in establishing between 
objects, and the mind, perplexed by its inability to fasten 
and weave the web of thought, is ready to feel that there is 
here no real knowledge ; forgetful that an organ of sense 
gives a new and final form of knowing. All knowledge is 
good and adequate, if we know enough to recognize and 
accept it. The understanding furnishes us a knowledge of 
relations. 

The judgment, like a busy shuttle, flies between the loose, 
parallel, independent lines of phenomenal being, bears 
with it the interlying thread of intuition, and shortly weaves 
all into a firm, coherent fabric, a system of things. The 
steadfastness and permanence of the work are secured by 
memory, while its brilliancy, the vividness of its coloring, 
arise from imaginatton. We thus seem to see some reason 
why these faculties, and no others, are called for. The judg- 
ment, under the eye of reason, knits together facts into rela- 
tions, which make them significant and intelligible, which 
show them to be a system of things, the memory stands by 
to proff'er the facts, and store the fabric ; while the imagina- 
tion dips again in living colors, these shadow products of 
the mind, as the sun saturates the cloud with its own hues. 



Il6 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Reason. 

§ I. We have now reached an action of mind, a faculty, 
whose existence is strenuously denied. Most able and 
thorough thinkers, patient inquirers within the field of phi- 
losophy itself, with a host of scientific investigators, who 
bring with them predilections and reasonings suited to 
other departments, regard this furniture of intuiti^'e ideas as 
wholly fabulous, as an unnecessary assumption in the ex- 
planation of phenomena entirely intelligible without it. 
Yet there is in philosophy no point of more importance, of 
more wide-reaching influence than this ; and that, too, not 
merely in the department itself, but in its social and moral 
and religious bearings. It is vain to strive to disconnect 
social and religious issues from mental science. The in- 
stitutions of society, and the commands of God, have mac 
for their subject, and neither their defects nor their excel- 
lences can be understood without a knowledge of his na- 
ture. Indeed, the very character of those notions on which 
duty turns — of right and of liberty — are here brought under 
discussion ; and also the validity of those conceptions and 
that reasoning on which the existence and government of 
God repose in our thoughts. The past attachments of our 
nature, its present powers and future hopes, are all involved 
in these investigations of philosophy, and more especially 
rin that branch of them which settles the original endow- 
ments of mind, and the degree of its dependence on the 
external world. Indeed what is meant by the external and 
internal worlds, and whether either or both of them can fur- 
nish a valid proof of their being, are inquiries that are now to 
find settlement, or to be left unsolved doubts, unexplained 



THE REASON. II7 

fears, ultimate mysteries, drifting athwart the mind, restrict- 
ing its spiritual vision, and displacing its cheerful surface- 
life with the shadows of deep, despairing clouds. 

Yet these discussions are as subtile and perplexing as 
they are important ; and moreover are looked on by patient 
plodders amid facts — most influential and servicable men 
— as hopeless and futile. They regard these labors as the 
mere money-maker would regard another expedition to the 
North Pole. The whole region, to the purely scientific 
mind, seems one of chimeras, not dire only because in- 
creasing wisdom enables us to laugh at them. Ghosts are 
always unproductive, and to men, ridiculous. The only 
touch of kind sentiment that the student of natural science 
has on this subject, is the regret that so many are still found 
to waste a hope or afear on such airy existences ; are yet un- 
willing to confront daylight with open eyes, instead of owling 
in invisible regions for invisible things. In these fields of 
difficult and abstruse inquiry, we shall need to work our 
way slowly and patiently, confronting our adversaries fairly, 
ourselves convinced of the importance of the truths here 
hidden ; sanguine as to the power of the mind to push and 
answer the questions most intimate to its own destiny, and 
repelling the scorn of ignorance with the silence of settled 
conviction, knowing that if ours or another's keel shall 
ever touch the distant shores of truth, shall ever add to the 
hemisphere of matter that of mind, the question. Who are 
fools .'' will be easily settled. 

The ideas in dispute have received various designations. 
They have been termed innate ideas, regulative ideas, intui- 
tive ideas, a priori \d.tdiS, and also have been regarded as forms 
of thought, entirely independent of the objects or matter of 
thought. Some of these are very faulty methods of expres- 
sion, especially if adhered to as complete in themselves to 
the exclusion of other methods. Indeed, no one word or 
expression is perfectly applicable to any one of these ideas, 



il8 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

and the relation of the mind to it ; much less is such a 
word sufficient to characterize all of them, varying as they 
do, intrinsically, and in their connections with the pheno- 
mena explained by them. One seems lo inhere like a qual- 
ity as right in action ; another to be a condition, as space to 
the objects in it ; another to be the manner in which the 
mind regards the things to which it applies, as number in 
connection with the objects numbered. No single expres- 
sion, therefore, canbe analyzed, no particular words tortured 
to disclose more exactly what is meant by an intuitive idea. 
In each case the relation itself must be contemplated, and 
the word be crimped to the fact, rather than the fact be 
learned by the word. 

We do not understand by this doctrine of regulative 
ideas, that the mind finds in itself a notion as a realized 
mental product, and applies this to the product before it ; 
nor that there is in thought certain forms, directions of 
movement, from which it cannot depart, and under which it 
works up the material brought to it. We understand rather 
that in the facts, on the occasion of the facts, the mind, not 
the senses, discerns relations by which it is able to explain 
them, to think concerning them, and this by means of cer- 
tain rational elements which it brings with it, or finds evoked 
under its own direct apprehension by the conditions of 
the problem before it. Nor do we affirm that these notions 
come necessarily and at once to every mind on every oc- 
casion intrinsically fitted for them ; but that they each and 
all do find, sooner or later, an occasion on which they do 
arise, and that there is in them a furnishing by the mind it- 
self of other and higher material of thought than the sen- 
ses alone can supply. In other words, there is in the in- 
tellectual handling of the facts of the world revealed in 
perception and consciousness, a new power of mind, 
which we term the reason, furnishing rational ideas and 
grounds of procedure, and enabling the judgment to oper- 



THE REASON. II9 

ate on the othei-wise limited, stubborn, irreducible sensations 
present. The existence and ofifice of a portion of these 
ideas all philosophers admit ; they are at variance only as 
to their source and nature — a variance which leads to the 
denial of the remaining and most essential ones. The no- 
tions of space and of time, traced to an empirical source, pre- 
pare the way for a denial of right and liberty in their tran- 
scendent character. 

We shall now proceed to take up these ideas one by one. 
both to establish the whole class and each member of it 
singly. In doing this, we shall not hesitate to repeat the 
argument in each case, so far as it presents any new features. 
The general doctrine of intuitive ideas is maintained if 
any one of them holds its ground, though for its successful 
and thorough application, the exact number and nature of 
these notions must be known. 

§ 2. The first of them is that of existence. This has 
drawn forth less discussion than some others, and does not 
therefore afford the best ground on which to meet the op- 
posing views. The affirmation is, that in the presence of 
sensations, perceptions, the mind comes at some moment 
to say. These are ; or involving another idea, that of 
causation, to say. The object occasioning them is. When this 
act of mind does take place, there is proof in it of a double 
activity aside from that of the judgment — an activity furnish- 
ing the perception, and a second activity supplying the pre- 
dicate. Can the judgment be made without both of these 
conditional activities ? Can the three be resolved into two, 
or one ? We answer, no. The judgment can do nothing 
with a naked sensation. It is to this higher faculty, lumber 
without tools. The sensation can yield nothing but mere feel- 
ing. Feeling, as feeling, is complete in itself, and may as 
well repose in the organic structure of an oyster, as in that 
of a man. Thejudgment alone can add nothing to that 
which u is to handle ; for if it does, you therein assign it a 



120 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

double office, that of reason and judgment, that of calling 
forth the predicate, and of coupling it with the ante- 
cedent. 

A sensation and the notion of existence involved therein, 
or better, evoked thereby, are very different. I see no rea- 
son why the one may not be experienced indefinitely with- 
out, in and by itself, giving rise to the OLber. Indeed we, 
with our rational powers even, are constantly enjoying or 
suffering sensations without affirming, or thinking of, their 
existence. This notion is present only as the mind from 
time to time is brought directly to contemplate them. 
There is no latent judgment of their existence in clearly ex- 
perienced, but not definitely thought of, sensations, in any 
other sense, than that the mind may, at any moment, have 
its attention directed to them, call them before itself for con- 
templation, and then be led to affirm their existence, under 
this mode of regarding them. A cloud is above the earth, 
and the mind may so decide at any instant : but there is no 
latent decision to that effect in the simple act of seeing a 
cloud, only the possibility of one. 

As the opposite view has not here received that complete 
and exhaustive statement which we shall find of it, under 
space and time, we cannot, to the best advantage, contro- 
vert it. We merely remark, that it seems to confound the 
sensation with the idea. This it does partly perhaps through 
the ambiguity of the word consciousness. It is not an un- 
usual or very harsh form of expression to say, I am con- 
scious that the odor exists, while the affirmation, I smell 
that it exists, is obviously inadmissible. Yet for philoso- 
phical purposes the last expression has all the breadth that 
can be allowed the first. Consciousness only reports the 
sensation, is as broad as the sensation, and this is fully ex- 
pressed in the verb, smell. We are not then conscious of 
the being of an odor, unless M-e smell that being. The 
Vords conscious, consciousness, have so enlarged their 



THE REASON. 121 

meaning as to be regarded as the ground of that which is 
known, when that knowledge springs from a judgment, and 
is thus referable to an indirect not a direct, a reflective and 
not an intuitive faculty. We are conscious of the existence 
of a sensation in no other sense than that we are conscious 
of the sensation, and also of the intuition and judgment by 
which existence is referred to it. These three acts are sep- 
arate sources of separate elements in the joint product, 
This odor is. Consciousness is nothing in itself, nothing 
additional, but is the common and pervasive condition of 
each of these acts as of every act of mind. No knowledge 
can be referred to consciousness which is not farther, more 
explicitly, referable to some given, specific power of mind, 
and the act of mind yielding the notion of existence is the 
one here insisted on, the reason. 

Says Bain, ' ' The sum total of all the occasions for put- 
ting forth active energy, or for conceiving this possible to 
be put forth, is our external world." {^The Senses and the 
Intellect, page ■^^o.) In this and the accompanying pas- 
sages, the sensations of resistance, rather than the suggestions 
and interpretations of those sensations, are kept uppermost, 
and thus the action of the reason concealed under that of 
the senses and the judgment. "The occasions" are rather 
occasions to the mind, and thus become the conditions of a 
knowledge not found in the simple energies of sensations 
which compose them. 

The judgment of existence does find its chief signifi.cance 
in connection with the experience and exercise of force, 
since here, united with that of causation, it leads to the 
telling afiirmation of the noumenon, the one permanent, 
underlying the phenomenal, external, material world ; and 
also of the spirit, the abiding source of changed and chang- 
ing mental states. To affirm phenomenal existence seems 
a merely formal act, beside this doubly pregnant one by which 
we go deeper than consciousness inward, farther than con- 



122 PRINXIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

sciousness outward, and fill supersensual regions with su- 
persensual forms of being. Phenomena are known direct- 
ly, and thus directly yielded in consciousness ; but now 
the conditions of a judgment are found which penetrates 
beyond appearances, and affirms permanent and unphe- 
nomenal existence, a fact incapable of experimental verifi- 
cation, and thus of appearing directly in consciousness. - 
We are conscious of judgments, not of their truth. 

We refer then this idea of existence to an independent 
faculty, the reason ; because it is not in the sensation as a 
sensation, nor to be secured by a passive flow from sensa- 
tion to sensation, each equally destitute of it; but is found first 
and fully in the incipient action of mind, when it begins to 
deal with and handle its hitherto unobserved experiences. 

§ 3. The second regulative idea is that of number. 
This, like that of existence, is so simple and direct, so con- 
stantly merged in the very perception to which it is attached, 
as to have called forth litde discussion, and made but slight 
claims for explanation on sensualistic schools of philosophy. 
Language also favors this oversight. I see one apple, I hear 
several sounds, I feel three distinct points, are examples of 
familiar expressions. We cover directly by verbs of sensa- 
tion, their objects, and the numerical relations of those ob- 
jects. Yet it is evident, that we do not see an object to be 
one. The numerical notion is brought to the mass of col- 
ors before us as one of the ways in which the mind may re- 
gard it. Indeed, the same object differently contemplated, 
yields a great variety of numerical relations, the sensations 
remaining exactly the same. It may present several colors, 
and while, therefore, we call it one in cohesive connec- 
tion, we may separate it into a multiplicity of parts by 
diversity of shades, or by outstanding members, or by rela- 
tive position. An object of regular outline and uniform 
color may still yield a plurality of parts through the unit of 
measurement we apply to its lines, angles, surfaces. The 



THE REASON. 1 23 

mind plays upon it with standards of its own, divides it 
with various linear and solid measurements, finds with each 
a diverse numerical expression, and terms it now one, now 
many, as suits the purposes of thought. All this is not a 
simple action of the senses ; nor any more is it when the 
incipient step of the process is taken by roughly calling the 
whole one thing. The color is seen, the hardness is felt. • 
the odor is smelt, and the sources of each are regarded as 
one object, or more than one, as the mind chances to con- 
template it, bringing to it one or another of various combin- 
ing ideas. There is no object of sense which is not in 
some relation one, as a tree, a grove, a forest, a world, a 
universe ; and none which may not be divided and thus yield 
plurality. Now this action of the judgment and attention 
must all go on under the notion of number, and, till this is 
furnished, all objects must remain undistinguished either 
as single or manifold. Objects of sense may reach the 
mind without drawing from it a numerical ' estimate. One 
may gather berries without regarding the number taken or 
left, though both be clearly seen. Distinction in the senses 
is not distinction in the intellect, and does not necessitate 
it ; any more than distinction in existence is distinction in 
thought. A dozen calls may bring a dog, though- he has 
taken no note of them as a dozen. Articulate sounds may 
convey the designed thought to the mind, a thought depen- 
dent on the exact number of elements, without attention di- 
rected to them as twenty, less or more. 

This separable character of number from the objects 
perceived, is seen in the fact, that two impressions on the 
senses, as on the eyes of men, or a thousand, as on the eye 
of an insect — become one object in the intellect ; and still 
more strongly in the fact, that numbers are treated inde- 
pendently in arithmetic and algebra, are accumulated in 
amounts entirely beyond experience, and are divided and 
compounded by processes not founded on observation, or 



1^4 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

proved by it ; but which belong to the necessary character 
of numerical conceptions. Our powerful algebraic solvents 
are general formulae, are wrought out wholly independent- 
ly of things, and are brought to explain outside facts other- 
wise numerically unintelligible. Thus most evident is it, 
that in the more abtruse application of numbers, as to 
curves and to complex motion, phenomena receive their so- 
lution from numerical conceptions, and do not, through the 
senses, yield it. Moreover, these estimates are reached by 
an arbitrary supposition of an equality of units never found 
in experience. One pound is regarded as absolutely 
equivalent to every other pound of the same denomination ; 
one foot, one mile, to the like measurements elsewhere. To 
fix on standard units, in which the approximation to equal- 
ity is sufficiently close to enable us safely to neglect errors, 
is a large share of the difficulty in mixed mathematics, and 
only when we deal with pure conceptions, as with that of 
space in geometry, do our numerical processes show their 
full power, stretching an unimpeded wing in realms as airy 
as themselves. Existence and number are among the most 
general of our notions, finding inherent, and to a rational 
mind, necessary, application everywhere. 

§ 4. A third intuitive idea is that of space. This has 
drawn much attention and been one of the centres of dis- 
cussion between the different schools of philosophy. 
Space, as immaterial and exterior to the object of p)erception, 
cannot be directly referred to the senses, or lost sight of in 
that which is furnished by them. It is not, like existence, 
so the very thing itself, or like number, the inseparable form 
of it ; but stands an antecedent and independent condition 
of the objects it contains. The derivation of this idea has 
therefore been assiduously labored over by philosophers who 
accept no intuitive faculties beyond those of perception, 
Herbert Spencer has given this subject a statement consi- 
dered highly satisfactory and conclusive by those who 



THE REASON. I25 

share his general view. We will take from his Principles of 
Psychology sufficient fairly to present his conclusions. 
Those who wish the entire argument by which they are 
supported we refer to the above work. It is impossible for 
us to do more than present its initial features. 

"Imagine that an immense number of fingers could be 
packed side by side, so that their ends made a flat surface ; 
and that each of them had a separate nervous connection 
with the same sensorium. If anything were laid upon the 
flat surface formed by those finger-ends, an impression of 
touch could be given to a certain number of them — a num- 
ber great in proportion to the size of the thing. And if 
two things successively laid upon them, diff'ered not only 
in size but in shape, there would be a difference not only 
in the number of the finger-ends affected, but also in the 
kind of combination. But now, what would be the inter- 
pretation of any impression thus produced, while, as yet, 
no experiences had been accumulated } Would there be 
any idea of extension } I think not. To simplify the 
question, let the first object laid on these finger-ends, be a 
straight stick; and let us name the two finger-ends on which 
its extremes lie, A and Z. If now it be said that the length 
of the stick will be perceived, it is implied that the distance 
between A and Z is already known, or, in other words, that 
there is a pre-existent idea of a special extension, which is 
absurd. If it be said that the extension is implied by the 
simultaneous excitation of B, C, D, E, F, and all the fin- 
gers between A and Z, the difficulty is not escaped ; for no 
idea can arise from the simultaneous excitement of these, 
unless there is a knowledge of their relative positions ; 
which is itself a knowledge of extension. By what process 
then can the length of the stick become known ? It can 
become known only after the accumulation of certain ex- 
periences, by which the series and fingers between A and Z 
becomes known. If the whole mass of fingers admits of 



126 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

being moved bodily, as the retina does ; and if by virtue of 
its movements, something now touched by finger A is next 
touched by finger B, next by C, and so on ; and if these 
experiences are so multiplied by motions in all directions, 
that between the touching by finger A and by any other fin- 
ger, the number of intermediate touches that will be felt is 
known ; then the distance between A and Z can be known 
— known, that is, as a series of states of consciousness 
produced by the successive touching of the intermediate 
fingers — a series of states comparable with any other such 
series, and capable of being estimated as greater or less. 
And when by numberless repetitions the relation between 
any one finger and each of the others is established, and 
can be represented to the mind as a series of a given 
length, then we may understand how a stick laid upon the 
surface, so as to touch all the fingers from A to Z inclusive, 
will be taken as equivalent to the series A to Z — how the 
simultaneous excitation of the entire range of fingers, will 
come to stand for its serial excitation — how thus, objects 
laid upon the surface will come to be distinguished from 
each other by the relative length of the series they cover, or 
when broad as well as long, by the groups of series which 
they cover — and how by habit these simultaneous excita- 
tions, from being at first known indirectly by translation 
into the serial ones, will come to be known directly, and 
the serial ones will be forgotten, just as in childhood the 
the words of a new language, at first understood by means 
of their equivalents in the mother tongue, are presently un- 
derstood by themselves ; and if used to the exclusion of the 
mother tongue, lead to the ultimate loss of it. The greatly 
magnified apparatus here described, being reduced to its 
original shape — the surface of the finger-ends being dimin- 
ished to the size of the retina, the things laid upon that 
surface being understood as the image cast upon the re- 
tina, and its movements in contact with these things,' as 



THE REASON. 127 

the movements of the retina relatively to the images — some 
conception will be formed of one part of the process by 
which our ideas of visual extension are gained. " — Pages 
221-2-3. 

The difference between the view we wish to enforce, and 
that presented in this passage, lies here : Do we interpret 
the experience here detailed by a notion of space, of exten- 
sion — for the one involves the other — at some instant evoked 
by it, or do we, at its conclusion, as its result, finally eliminate 
such a notion .? This may seem a slight difference, yet 
it is a fundamental one. We give a further quotation in 
completion of the above. "How, through experiences of 
occupied extension or body, can we ever gain the notion of 
unoccupied extension or space .? How from the perception 
of a relation between resistant positions, do we progress to 
a perception of a relation between non-resistant positions } 
If all the space attributes of body are resolvable into rela- 
tions of position between subject and object, disclosed in 
the act of touch — if originally, relative position is only 
thus knowable — if therefore position is, to the nascent in- 
telligence, incognizable except as the position of something 
that produces an impression on the organism, how is it 
possible for the idea of position ever to be dissociated 
from that of body.? How can the germinal notion of 
empty extension ever be gained .? 

This problem, though apparently difficult of solution, is 
really a very easy one. If, after some particular motion of a 
limb, there invariably came a sensation of softness, after 
some other one of roughness, after some other one of 
hardness — or if, after those movements of the eye neeaed 
for some special act of vision, there always came a sensa- 
tion of redness, after some other a sensation of blueness ; 
and so on — it is manifest that, in conformity with the known 
laws of association, there would be established a constaat 
relation between such notions and such sensations. It po- 



128 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

sitions were conceived at all, they would be conceived as 
invariably occupied by things producing special impressions ; 
and it would be impossible to disassociate the positions 
from the things. But as, in our experience, we find that a 
certain movement of the hand which once brought the fin- 
ger in contact with something hot, now brings it in contact 
with something sharp, and now with nothing at all ; and 
that a certain movement of the eye, which once was follow- 
ed by the sight of a black object, is now followed by the 
sight of a white object, and now by the sight of no object ; 
it results that the idea of the particular position accompany- 
ing each one of these movements, is, by accumulated ex- 
periences, dissociated from objects and impressions, and 
comes to be conceived by itself; it results that as here are 
endless such movements, there come to be endless such po- 
sitions conceived as existing apart from body, and it results 
that, as in the first, and in every subsequent act of percep- 
tion, each position is known as co-existent with the subject, 
there arises a consciousness of endless such co-existent po- 
sitions ; that is, of space." — Pages 233-4. 

We hold that these experiences must call forth at some 
point the idea of space, as the light under which compre- 
hension must commence and proceed, and that they can- 
not close with a gleam of generalization waiting farther ex- 
perience to grow into knowledge. Till this idea is evoked 
every movement will, in its spacial relations, be utterly un- 
intelligible, provoking indeed no attention ; after it is 
evoked, these movements will but make it the more definite 
and precise in its application. Take the illustration offered 
• by Spencer. Let a stick rest on imaginary finger-ends, 
by its two extremities, designated A and Z. Can that fact 
alone call forth the idea of space.? We think it may, pro- 
vided it be known as a fact, and two mutually excluding 
positions are recognized in sensation. It would evidently 
be thus interpreted at once by the adult mind, and a farther 



THE REASON. 1 29 

movement of the fingers would only be sought after as giv- 
ing confirmation to the fact of two mutually exclusive sen- 
sations, and as furnishing a distinct estimate of the distance 
between the two points. The objection expressed by Spen 
cer, in the words, ' ' If now it be said that the length of the 
stick will be perceived, it is implied that the distance 
between A and Z is already known ; or in other words, 
that there is a pre-existent idea of special extension which 
is absurd, " has no particular force ; for it only holds against 
the assertion, that the space A Z is not merely recognized as 
a space, but accurately known in its dimensions. This 
knowledge, our latest adult experience fails to give us, and 
certainly a general notion of some space must go before 
this, its careful estimate. The precise and exact do not 
precede in knowledge the vague and general. If the 
points A and Z are recognized as distinct, according to the 
comparison on distinct finger-ends, or in the sense of sight, 
which these multiplied points of touch are intended to illus- 
trate, at different parts of the retina — then this simple ex- 
perience of sensations, at diverse positions excluding each 
other, can only find apprehension, can only be an initial 
step of knowledge, by and through the comprehending idea 
of space. Only under this fact of space, can the pheno- 
mena occur ; only by it can they be understood for what 
they are, and there are no possible steps toward their solu- 
tion, till this first idea is present, as an apprehension of the 
conditions of the problem. If the sensations are not known 
as in position, and in distinct position, then there is not 
yet the germ of suggestion, the rudiments of inquiry ; if 
they are so known, there is already present the initiatory 
knowledge of space. 

Let us suppose, with Spencer, this notion to be wanting, 
that we have sensations at A and Z, and at such other inter- 
vening points as we choose, and yet have not any sugges- 



130 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tion therein of position or extension. The mind remains 
perfectly quiet. 

The sensations as sensations merely lie in consciousness, 
but in their space-relations no attention is directed to them, 
or evoked by them. Exactly the same mental state might 
remain when the sensations should change by becoming 
serial, by alternating backward and forward on successive 
finger-points, by furnishing in any way farther data of that 
exact knowledge which the first data had done nothing to 
call forth. The images in a mirror may lie still, or move 
among themselves, and in neither case is any apprehension, 
comprehension of them made necessary to the mirror. No 
more would there be if the mirror were simply and perma- 
nently conscious of them as mere sensations. Suppose, 
however, the attention of the mind is awakened and direct- 
ed to this movement. How alone can it begin to under- 
stand and explain the facts before it, except by applying the 
notion of space, now so strongly plucked at among its com- 
prehensive solvents ? If " numberless repetitions," are re- 
quisite, that is, if an entire series of movements can be 
closed and the mind still remain without the idea — remain 
quiescent, dead, mirror-like, holding distinct sensations in 
distinct spacial relations without knowing them as distinct, 
reaching no judgment — then a second, a third, a fiftieth re- 
petition, as mere repetition, having the light of no new idea 
cast upon it, may leave the mind, nay, must, unless at some 
point it be awakened to a new method, as quiescent and 
dark as at the outset. 

The only ground on which any other conclusion is pos- 
sible is, that space is not an idea, but literally x series of 
sensations ; or at least a sensational fact or quality general- 
i;jed from a series of experiences, as sweetness is a quality 
separated clearly by repetition from other qualities, red, a 
color distinguished by repeated observation from other co- 



THE REASON, 



131 



lors. In these cases the reiterated sensation enables us to 
distinguish and abstract its peculiar quahty. 

Absurd and impossible as this view of space, that it is a 
quality of sensation, seems to us to be, we believe that it 
lurks in the arguments and statements of the sensational 
school. Thus, in the passage given above, it is " the serial 
excitations, " which are identified with the notion of space, 
and are made by association to underlie and explain "the 
simultaneous excitations." In fact, however, the one set of 
phenomena no more requires the explanation of the idea 
than the other, no more contains it than the other. It is 
merely because there is in the first a movement, a variation 
of the sensations, that they give, or rather seem to give, a 
foothold to explanation not found in the second. Yet this 
change must be observed in the very quality of the sensa- 
tions and not in the relation of the sensations, or no ground 
of exposition is aff"orded by Spencer, Relations are intel- 
lectually seen, the qualities alone are a matter of perception. 
Elsewhere Spencer speaks of the "sense of ability to move" 
"the sense oi freedom for motions" as a constituent in our 
idea of space. Observe that this ability, freedom, is not 
spoken of as something explained under the idea, but as a 
constituent of the idea. 

Bain says yet more explicitly : ' ' Extension or space as 
a quality has no other origin and no other meaning than the 
association of these different sensitive and motor effects," 
'M.-2a\\\\^\iOY&s, quality 2MdL no other vieaning. Again, "the 
mental conception that we have of empty space is scope for 
movement, the possibility or potentiality of movement ; and 
this conception we derive from our experience of move- 
ments. " — The Senses and the Intellect, p. 378. How is it 
as to the interstellar, or the intermolecular spaces ? What 
has experience to say concerning these } Do we in them 
derive our belief of space from the changed sensations of 
motion.? Bain proceeds still farther. "By such steps as I 



132 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

have endeavored to describe, we derive our notion of ex- 
tended things, of extension in the concrete. And from this 
we can obtain an abstract notion of the extended in the 
same manner as we gain any other abstract notion, as col- 
or, heat or justice. " This can only be true if our know- 
ledge of space, like our knowledge of heat and color, is a 
sensation ; and this belief, not explicitly stated, underlies lo- 
gically the sensualistic philosophy. The doctrine that space 
is a sensation or "quality " of sensations, or a series or con- 
catenation of sensations, or in any way an immediate pro- 
duct of sensation, we are willing to leave without argument 
to the refutation of simple statement. It would thus sink 
wholly from the intellectual field, and, if allowed to drag 
other kindred ideas with it, would leave neither occasion 
nor opportunity for any other faculty than that of percep- 
tion. Sensations lie together, and need no conjunction by 
the judgment ; and as for any notions wherewith the mind 
is to comprehend and classify them, there are none ; those 
thought to be such, are themselves sensations. Feel your 
way, feel on and feel ever, would be the comprehensive di- 
rection to a being — we can scarcely say mind, for the mind 
is now resolved into one form of activity — so formed. Feel 
space, feel time, feel number, and look to your finger-ends 
for liberty and right or eternally lose them. 

Let us carefully guard against one point of misapprehen- 
sion. We say nothing as to any definite time in the pro- 
gress of the infant in which the idea of space will arise. 
Sensations as sensations may come and go. We know not 
how long, without evoking the idea ; but when it does 
come, it will come at once from within ; not in an abstract, 
discriminated, but in a concrete, obscure form, and prepare 
the way for a new series of intellectual actions. All precise 
estimates and measurements are, of course, the sole fruit of 
experience, and give the infant mind abundant occupation 
under this regulative idea. 



THE REASON. 



133 



One may study Geometry with little or no abstract con- 
sideration of space as space, yet the idea is tacitly present 
everywhere. The child may come to a knowledge of the 
position and dimension of its own members, with no ab- 
stract direction of the mind to the notion of space as such, 
though that idea quickly informs the whole process. 

In the second of the longer quotations above given from^ 
Spencer, we have the notion of space, empty space, de- 
rived from a vacant organ of sense. Direct the mind 
steadily to this point. An organ, as the finger-end, 
or the eye, with no content of sensation in it, a 
simple blank, is one thing ; and this fact accounted for and 
explained to the mind by the idea of empty space is quite 
another. If the first, generalized in any way he pleases, is 
Spencer's idea of space, then that idea consists in the mere 
absence of sensation, and should exist in the highest de- 
gree in connection with paralyzed organs. A recognition 
of blindness, or even deafness, should be one of space. If, 
however, the fact of a vacant organ becomes significant 
only in connection with a process of mind, we wish to 
know under what guiding clue that process proceeds. 
What is brought to the explanation of the fact ? It seems 
to us that but one answer can be given — space. 

Spencer, with the marked approval of Bain, makes, in 
another phase of the argument, the notion of space dependent 
on co-existence, and co-existence the fruit of experience. 

"Not only is it that the idea of space involves the idea of 
co-existence, but it is that the idea of co-existence, involves 
the idea of space. Fundamentally space and co-existence 
are two sides of the same cognition." 

" On the one hand space cannot be thought of without co- 
existent positions being thought of ; on the other hand co- 
existence cannot be thought of, without at least two points 
in space being thought of A relation of co-existence im- 
plies t-wo somethings that co-exist. Two somethings can- 



I'34 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

not occupy absolutely the same point in space. And hence 
co-existence implies space. Space can be known only as 
presenting relations of co-existence ; relations of co-exist- 
ence can be known only as presented in space." 

"If now it should turn out under an ultimate analysis — 
that a relation of co-existence is not directly cognizable, but is 
cognizable only by a duplex act of thought — only by a com- 
parison of experiences ; the question between the transcen- 
dentalists, and their opponents, will be set finally at rest. 
When after it has been shown as above, that our cognition of 
space in its totalit}' is explicable upon the experience hy- 
pothesis, and that all the peculiarities of the cognition cor- 
respond to that hypothesis, it comes to be shown that the 
ultimate elements into which that cognition is decomposable 
— the relation of co-existence — can itself be gained only by 
experience — the utter untenableness of the Kantian doc- 
trine will become manifest." — Pages 243-4. 

Herein our author hardly agrees with himself, having in- 
sisted that the co-existent points, A, B, Z, cannot give the 
idea of extension, though it now turns out that a know- 
ledge of their co-existence would have been essentially a 
knowledge of space. We believe that the notion of any sim- 
ple position involves that of space, is explained under it, 
and therefore that a single sensation of touch, complex in- 
deed, yet regarded as simple, might, abstractly considered, 
call forth the idea. This we do not care to dwell on, as it 
is doubtless in connection with many simultaneous and se- 
rial phenomena, presented in several senses, that the notion 
actually does arise. We cannot accept the statement that 
,the ultimate element into which the cognition, space, is de- 
composable, is co-existence. On the other hand, the no- 
tion of external, material co-existence is subsequent in :he 
order of thought to that of space. Nor are the two by any 
means the same. I may have the idea of empty space. 
I may put one object in it, or two or three objects in it, 



THE REASON. 135 

but the idea of space has preceded each and all before 
they became to me external objects, or the images of such 
objects. Indeed, simple co-existence, as of an act of 
memory and a thought, of a thought and a feeling, does 
not bring or involve the idea of space ; single existence, 
that is contemplated by the mind, localized in an organ of 
sense, does, or at least may bring this idea, since this is 
pertinent to its explanation. The contrast of the inner' 
and the outer, of the ego and non-ego, may, or may not 
go forward ; but live first step in such a contrast, the initial 
stroke of light in handling a local sensation, is the local- 
izing idea of space. How often, and how long I may have 
one, two, three sensations, and not contemplate, under- 
stand, expound them, is simply the question, How long do 
the senses ante-date in development the other intellectual 
powers ? When these come, they come thus, not other- 
wise. The fact of co-existence is a mere blind data of 
sensations, until contemplated under the idea of space. 
The actual co-existence of two things is not involved in 
space, but only its possibility. The extension of space, 
the possibility of such a co-existence, is the notion ot 
space, is in and of the very idea. Actual co-existence 
alone rests on sensation, the possibility of it on the intui- 
tion. Mr. Spencer is not to think and speak of the co-ex- 
istence of two positions as if it were identical v/ith the co-ex- 
istence of things. The first is in no way lodged in, or a data 
of sensation. If he tries to make it so, he is thrown im- 
mediately back onto his former proof, and loses his present 
foothold. 

We have made no distinction between extension and 
space. We regard the first only as a specification under 
the second. The extension of particular objects, and the 
duration of particular events, are forms under which the 
mind applies the intuitive ideas of space and of dme. A 
knowledge of actual spaces, extension, a measurement of 



136 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

material objects, are the fruits of experience ; but these es- 
timates proceed always under the prior notion of space, 
which makes them intelligible. 

Space, in its analytical contemplation, furnishes a variety 
of intuitive conceptions which are the basis of the demon- 
strative reasonings of Geometry and Trigonometr)'. Such a 
notion is position, a line, a surface, perfect curves, figures, 
solids. A circle in its accurate form, a ground of demon- 
strative truth, is an intuitive conception, as are the propo- 
sitions which flow from the immutable relation of its parts, 
and of the lines which define, and are defined by them. 
A surface without thickness, a line without breadth, a 
point without dimensions, are all intuitive conceptions un- 
der the primitive idea, and are the elements of a purely in- 
tuitive science. The most marked of those secondary 
conceptions is that of position. It is to be entirely distin- 
guished from an infinitesimal body ; as the infinite of»the 
metaphysician wholly transcends the infinite of the mathe- 
matician. Position is not arrived at by the futile sub-divi- 
sions of the fancy, is not the result of the dogma of divisi- 
bility. There is here absolutely no length nor breadth, and 
the idea is reached directly by the grasp of the reason. The 
imagination may falter in struggling by additions to reach 
the infinite, and by subtractions to arrive at pure position ; 
but the reason easily and at once accepts both notions, and 
rids them of those measurable pa rts by which the imagina- 
tion baffles itself in the pursuit. Position is absolutely 
without measurements, and hence without parts ; the in- 
finite is absolutely beyond measurement, and hence also 
without parts. There is no whole, therefore no division 
of that whole. 

§ 5. We now pass to time, a regulative idea, like that of 
space, which has attracted much attention as obviously 
open to a super-sensual reference. We need not, however, 
dwell upon it, as the line of discussion is quite similar to 



THE REASON. 1 37 

that pursued under space. The sensations occasioned by 
phenomena into which the idea of time most obviously en- 
ters, are indeed diverse in their relations from those chiefly 
suggestive of space. Or rather, things are viewed in distinct 
bearings in the application of the one or the other notion. 
In each case, nevertheless, the diversity is only understood 
by an a priori recognition of the controlling idea of the re- 
lation under which it arises. Some objects can be contem- 
plated indifferently in one order of succession, or in a re- 
verse order. We may move from A to Z, or return from 
Z to A. Others, transpiring in time, confine the attention 
to one direction. We pass from A to Z, but cannot retrace 
our steps. The cars enter the field of vision at the left, 
and pass out at the right. In these facts there is an occa- 
sion, though not an explanation, of the notion of time. 
The mind cannot, under the influence of a mere series of 
sensations, discover this relation ; since it is not in and of 
the sensations, but that which expounds them. Nor can it 
institute a comparison between the two relations of objects 
which shall issue in any comprehension of them, without 
itself supplying the essential conditions of that explanation 
— ^the notions of space and time. We must either hold 
that time is an order of sensations — and this supposition 
even would not relieve us of our difficulty, as we shall 
show under the notion of resemblance — or we must admit 
it to be that transcendent idea which expounds that order, 
and is therefore supplied by the mind. 

Says Spencer, ' ' As the ideas of space and co-existence 
are inseparable, so also are the ideas of time and sequence. 
It is impossible to think of time, without thinking of some 
succession ; and it is equally impossible to think of any suc- 
cession without thinking of time. Time, like space, can- 
not be conceived except by the establishment of a relation be- 
ween at least two elements of consciousness, the difference 
being, that while in the case of space, those two elements 



138 PRINXIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

are, or seem to be, present together, in the case of time they 

are not present together." — Principles of Psychology, page 247. 

This statement, so far as it is admissible at all, is so as 
a statement of the circumstances under which the idea of 
time arises, and not of the nature of that idea itself. 
Used for the latter purpose, the author legitimately reaches 
the conclusion that time zj " relativity of position among' 
the states of consciousness. " The process of arriving at 
this result, is farther explained thus: "Gradually, as 
by the accumulation of experiences, there are found to 
be like and unlike sounds, tastes, smells, sizes, forms, 
textures ; the relationship which we signify by these words, 
like and unlike, will be more and more dissociated from 
particular impressions ; and the abstract ideas of likeness 
and ufilikeness will come into existence. Manifestly, then, 
the ideas of likeness and unlikeness are impossible until 
multitudes of things have been thought of as like and un- 
like. Similarly in the case before us. After various rela- 
tions of position among the states of consciousness, have 
been contemplated, have been compared, have become 
familiar ; and after experiences of different relations of po- 
sition have been so accumulated as to dissociate the idea of 
the relation from all particular positions ; then, and not 
till then, can there arise the abstract notion of relativity 0/ 
Position among the states of consciousness — the notion of 
time. 

"Thus so far is it from being true that time, as conceived 
by us, is a form of thought ; it turns out contrariwise, not 
only that there can be thoughts while yet time has not 
beer, conceived, but that there 7nust be thoughts, before it 
can become conceivable " — Page 252. 

Our objection to the above conclusion is double. The 
comparison itself cannot go on, as we trust later to show, 
without a regulative idea, that of resemblance, under which 
it can be instituted ; and that in which it is said to issue is 



THE REASON. 1 39 

not the notion of time. That which is explained by time is 
very different from time itself. If the first were the second 
we should have no need of an independent, explanatory 
notion, the phenomena would be complete, intelligible in 
themselves. The sequence of events provokes the notion, 
but is not that notion. Sequence and time do not mutual- 
ly contain each other — but time is that idea without which 
the fad of sequence is unintelligible. That time is not 
identical with succession, is seen in our measurement of it. 
A succession of events may be completed in a shorter or 
longer period, and if time to us were their mere relation in 
sequence, we should insist on its identity in the two cases. 
We distinguish time from any given sequence, indeed from 
all sequences, longer or shorter according to the forces at 
work. We do not identify it with that series of events even 
by which we measure it. The conditions for its exact esti- 
mate and general apprehension are different. The notion 
of time, with no actual events transpiring in it, is quite con- 
sonant with thought. Moreover, many sequences are sim- 
ultaneous. The relativity of which one of these is it that 
constitutes time ? It cannot be one to the exclusion of the 
remainder, for no one has such a pre-eminence over every 
other. Neither can it be all, since they are constantly vary- 
ing among themselves. What effect has it on time, that 
one drives faster than he has been driving, that a railroad 
train has stopped at a station, that the thoughts have been 
quickened by danger .? The quality of sweetness may exist 
in many things, and have shades of diversity in each ; is 
this also our conception of time .? 

The prior notion of time, moreover, imposes sequence, 
when there is no sequence in the states of consciousness, 
but rather alternation. The mind may pass from A to B in 
contemplation, and back again ; it may vibrate between the 
two in alternate thought : yet it does this as certainly under 
the idea of time as if it had simply passed on to Z, Motion 



I40 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

in a circle is felt to be motion as much as movement in a 
straight line. Bare contemplation without conscicus pro- 
gress is felt to occupy time ; it is for the measure, not for 
the fact of time, that we revert to external events at the ex- 
piration or change of a single absorbing feeling. There is 
doubtless some succession in every phase of mind, but it is 
not necessary for us to contemplate these minor and obscure 
transitions to be aware that every act, the very act of atten- 
tion, occupies time. We might as well endure an intense, 
absorbing pain for an hour as for an instant, if we are not able 
to distinguish between the two cases. That which we urge 
is, that the notion of time imposes the sense of sequence 
where there is no proper sequence in the sensations as sen- 
sations, and the alternate consideration of A, B, like the 
beat of a clock, marks distinctly the flow of time. Indeed 
all consciousness is made sequential, no matter what the or- 
der of its states, by the very notion of time in which they 
transpire. We cannot escape the inner succession of im- 
pressions, because we cannot elude the interpreting idea, 
that of time. The position of ''states of consciousness, " 
must, and can be only that of succession, whatever their 
character or the number of times they are repeated. The 
inner law overrules the outward appearance, and imposes 
the notion of sequence. 

Suppose, on the other hand, with Spencer, that we could 
pass from A to Z, without the idea of time. In that case 
we should not only be destitute of it, but have made no 
progress towards it. We should simply have experienced 
sensations without explanation, or interpretation. No repe- 
-^tition of this process, however frequent, could make it fruit- 
ful of a new notion. The simple idea must be present to 
open the inquiry. Time must be a sensation, like tbat of 
green and red, or its distinct separation, abstraction cunnot 
follow from repetition. The sensation green is given in 
each particular instance, and then, by distinguishing atten- 



THE REASON. 141 

tion, by generalization, is made to assume the abstract form. 
This process is possible only to sensations, — and even then 
involves more than sensation — not to relations; since a re- 
lation is addressed to the intellect, and not to the sense, and 
can only be understood in connection with an idea under 
which it arises and is defined as a relation of place, time, 
dependence. On no supposition is the closing statement 
of Spencer admissible. "So far is it from being true that 
Time, as conceived by us, is a form of thought, it turns out 
contrariwise, not only that there can be thoughts while yet 
time has not been conceived, but that there must be 
thoughts before it can become conceivable." 

As a sensation, time must be experienced in each sensa- 
tion from which it is to be abstracted, as a relation also it 
must be discoverable in each series or it cannot be general- 
ized from all ; and as an idea disclosing a relation it must 
come at once. Time, must be a sensation, or it must 
be a specific relation under some general idea, or it must 
itself be a primary idea, the condition of actual, individual 
connections. The first supposition is plainly false, while 
the second is as unacceptable to the empirical school as 
the third, since it also implies original, intuitive action 
of the mind. Yet I see no escape except in the assertion 
that a relation can be discovered, by the senses discovered, 
of no specific order or kind, and this is not an escape, 
since such a rel^ion could not be generalized into one of a 
specific order or kind, to wit, that of time. 

§ 6. The next regulative idea we offer is that of resem- 
blance. This has been constantly overlooked, and with 
great injury to the arguments sustaining the Intuitive Phi- 
losophy. It has been quietly assumed, that resemblance is 
a matter of sensation only, that in it exclusively are given 
the data of this category ; that one color is seen to be like 
or unlike another: one taste tested as like or unlike a suc- 
ceeding one. We might as well claim the judgment m 



142 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

which this relation is expressed to be an act of sense. 
Green, red, sweet, sour, are known as qualities by sensa- 
tion, and here the sense pauses. The eye sees a green color 
once, twice, thrice ; but it makes no comparison, institutes 
no judgment, recalls no impressions. These, the labors of 
other intellectual powers, must commence and go on in the 
light, and this light is that of an interpreting idea. What 
is resemblance ? It is not the red in the apple; no more is 
it the red on the leaf; no more is it these two sensations 
united in time and place. It is a specific relation between 
the two, intelligible as a given case of a general notion. 
Can the specific relation be first reached, and the general 
idea be deduced from it ? No ! As a relation it is an in- 
tellectual product, a judgment, two sensadons explained in 
their bearings on each other under an idea. The sensations 
alone do not contain in their sensational matter the relation, 
and cannot furnish it, nor can the intellectual movement 
proceed without the forecasting apprehension, the head 
light. Moreover, the specific relation must hold, must ex- 
press, in one form of it, the general relation, or that relation 
cannot be deduced from it. Resemblance is intellectually 
involved in the first instance of it: and, as it is not a sensa- 
tion, it must be involved for the direct, intuitive apprehen- 
sion of the mind there present for its interpretation. It is 
not the result of the judgment which expresses it, but an 
element and ground of that judgment. There are sensible 
and supersensual data for the declaration. The leaf is like 
the apple. 

The frequent oversight of this fact has, we say, greatly 
embarrassed the discussion between the two schools of 
philosophy. The idea of resemblance has been quietly 
appropriated. The observation of agreements and dis- 
agreements has been allowed to proceed as if it were pure- 
ly a matter of perception, and thus a play of mind has 
been secured, a germ of judgment, a nucleus of thinking, 



THE REASON. I43 

with no recognized a priori material. From the elements 
of intellectual action thus secured, it has been comparatively 
easy, by patient composition and slight oversight, similar to 
that which characterized the first step, to broaden the 
grounds of thought, and to surreptitiously include one 
after another of its essential conditions. This process is 
arrested at the outset, if we reclaim, as we should, the idea 
of resemblance. ' No generalization can go forward with- 
out it, and the fictitious growth of regulative ideas is 
checked at once. We cannot, for instance, compare sen- 
sations as co-existent or as successive, and under the one 
agreement smuggle in the idea of space, and under the 
other that of time. We are left, as we should be, standing 
on sensations alone ; knowing color, odor, taste, but with 
no opportunity for comparison, classification, generaliza- 
tion, as we have no luminous idea under v/hich a move- 
ment of thought is made visible. 

There must be a little play given to thinking somewhere, 
in some direction, under some notion, before it can work 
out anything whatever ; before it can acquire momentum, 
institute a process, and, in the superficial movement estab- 
lished, give apparent ground for the true connections of 
thought. The sensations are indeed present as the ma- 
terial of thought, the judgment is waiting as the agent of 
thought ; but there is no plan of thought, no direction of 
thought, no space or orderly way wherein thought can find 
exercise, till some notion, most frequently this of resem- 
blance, is furnished. The axe cannot cut while it is 
pressed close against the timber ; tools are of no avail 
packed tightly in a chest. Give the h atchet the play of an 
inch, and with patience and an increasing sweep, it will at 
length hew for itself a broad path. Scope must be granted 
for wielding a weapon. One after another the implements 
must be loosened from their lodgment, and to mitiate this 
movement, room, the ground and condition of effort, must 



144 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

be granted. So must room, an idea under which to move, 
be given to the very first judgment, before generalization is 
possible, and the one stolen for this purpose, is that of re- 
semblance. 

§ 7. The sixth regulative idea is that of cause and ef- 
fect. This is one of the most undeniable of them all, and is 
either greatly restricted in its statement, or entirely rejected 
by those who refuse to accept the reason as a source of 
knowledge. Indeed, a correct, adequate presentation of 
the notion as it lies in the general mind, shows it at once 
to be beyond sensation, generalization, or any action that 
these processes can verify. The convenience of expression 
has led to the extension of the term cause, not merely to 
lemote agents, but even to the condition of their action. 
Any one of all the circumstances necessary to an effect, is 
spoken of as its cause, though no direct efficiency proceeds 
from it. In a stricter sense, the word cause includes only 
those antecedents which are active in the effect, and in a 
yet closer sense, the sense which belongs to it in the 
present discussion, the forces imnnediately operative in the 
fact before us. The cause is strictly contemporaneous with 
the effect, underlies it, momentarily occasions it. The 
antecedent effect had its antecedent cause, and though this 
cause may have been identical with the cause now operat- 
ing, it remains a cause by virtue of its present activity. 
The effect is the immediate evidence of the cause ; and 
though the last is prior in thought to the first, neither can 
exist an instant without the other. The sound of the 
steam-whistle is remotely attributable to the distant loco- 
motive, is more immediately to be referred to the move- 
ment of the air and the tympanum, but finds its causes 
exactly in the forces which sustain the movement, and the 
living powers which receive and interpret it. In this sense 
the cause is always and necessarily transcendental, out of 
the range of the senses, incapable of verification by any 



THE REASON. I45 

Other than the very faculty, which in the first instance yields 
the idea. 

The statements of Empirical Philosophy are quite differ- 
eut from those now made. Says Bain, "The successions 
designated as Cause and Effect, are fixed in the mind by 
contiguity. Belief in external reality is anticipation of a 
given effect of a given antecedent ; and the effects and 
causes are our own various sensations and movements. " More 
clearly still does Mill speak of the notion as one of simple 
antecedence ; while Spencer treats of it under the caption, 
' ' The Relation of Sequence. " If these and other kin- 
dred statements are correct, then there is no veritable idea 
of cause and effect in the precise, intuitive sense, since a 
fixed sequence finds explanation under the notion of time, 
and requires for its statement no other form of thought. 
That there is any sufficient knowledge or idea of the ground 
of such a sequence is simply denied by this class of philoso- 
phers. There is in this attitude an abandonment of the idea 
of causation as irresolvable into experience, insolvable in 
empirical acids, and a substitution for it of a certain appli- 
cation of the notion of time. The ground of debate, 
therefore, is narrowed down to the correctness with which 
the phenomena under discussion are stated by the respec- 
tive parties. If it be shown, that simple sequence does 
not, in the common mind, cover the entire ground of 
causation, there is in the empirical philosophy an abandon- 
ment of one actual, universal, regulative idea as inexplica- 
ble ; a superficial substitution for it, of the fragment of 
another, and this for no other reason than that its own 
theory can find no place for this fixed conviction. It is 
the facts of the mind's action that philosophy inquires into, 
and the above proof being given, there will here be left a 
form of action as universal and persistent, and hence as ul- 
timate and authoritative as any, uncovered by materialism. 

The universal conviction, if it can be arrived at, is not 



146 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

to be pushed aside, to be left unexplained, to be regarded 

as a fanciful, accidental, invalid movement of mind, with- 
out a reason rendered, distinguishing this from kindred 
affirmation of our faculties. We may not impeach the ac- 
tion of the mind at one point, without at least separating 
this point broadly and decisively from every other. To 
deny any of its explicit data, is an a priori and groundless 
attack on the good faith of our faculties, and that by these 
very faculties themselves — is to decide that there cannot be 
intuitive ideas, because, forsooth, they are intuitive ideas, 
and thus not explicable under other powers. If they were 
so explicable, they would not be intuitive. Is a persistent 
notion found which is not referable to sensation ; in this 
fact is furnished the desired proof of original, independent 
matter. Certainly this proof cannot be met in way of ar- 
gument by a denial which precludes all proof, and fore- 
stalls discussion ; which assumes an antecedent impossibil- 
ity so great as to make proof impossible. These universal 
convictions are not to be obnoxious, merely because, as 
otherwise inexplicable, they demand the intuitive insight 
claimed for them. There is here really a priori conviction 
brought to disprove a priori truths ; for what but an a priori 
bias of mind, is this antecedent reluctance to admit the 
possibility of regulative ideas .'' 

What then is the fact } Which statement best conforms to 
the popular, the universal conviction, that of fixed ante- 
dence, or of present, underlying power. There can be no 
doubt on this pomt. The case is a plain, almost an admitted 
one against Empirical Philosophy. Language is full of this 
notion of an inherent, sub-phenomenal connection between 
events. The word force distinctly expresses this causal 
link, and few words are more familiar, or play a more im- 
portant part in speech. Of the same kind, are the words 
power, influejice, etiergy, strength, and more or less markedly 
most of the words which express physical action. Puil, 



THE REASON. I47 

push, press, pry, lift, lug, labor, the entire vocabulary of 
effort are saturated with this causal notion of an invisible 
efficiency, which expends itself in all forms of activity. 
Behold any striking display of force, the blasting of rocks, 
and every mind is impressed with the power of the invisi- 
ble agent. To look upon the lifting of detached masses, 
the seaming of the solid bed, as a mere sequence of dis- 
connected events, is impossible to any mind, in its first, 
spontaneous action. No descriptive language was ever 
applied to such events, that regarded them simply as a se- 
quence. The popular, the universal conviction is unmis- 
takable, that here is force, invisible power. 

Equally present is the idea to all science. Gravitation, 
cohesion, chemical affinity, the correlation of forces, the 
various theories of physical facts, like Darwin's theory of 
gem mules, or Spencer "s of physiological units, involve the 
notion of inherent power, working the results under con- 
sideration. Science could not carry forward its investi- 
gations without this recognition of force. To discover the 
traces of its presence, and the lines of its action, is the 
constant triumph of knowledge. To confound fixed ante- 
cedents with efficient force is impossible to successful in- 
quiry. The shadow of an object approaching us from 
the light, would thus be its cause; the eff"ervescence of 
lime and water, the cause of the heat ; the dissolving of 
salt in the water, the cause of the cold. The first fact, in 
each series of associated eff'ects, would be the source of the 
remainder. No sequences are more fixed than those of 
day and night, summer and winter, yet there is no direct, 
causal connection between them, and no one ever so con- 
ceives the dependence. 

Philosophy likewise reverts constantly to insensible, un- 
approachable causes. A large share of philosophers ad- 
mit their existence and the grounds of it ; and those who 
through their denial of the latter are content to sacrifice the 



148 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

former, do not, and cannot, use language, except in a few 
guarded passages, consistent with their own statements. 
They must, with Bain, in each inadvertent moment, speak of 
" active energy, " of "mechanical powers," of " rousing the 
dormant energy," and to deny themselves these and kin- 
dred expressions, to forego the ideas back of them, would 
be to take away the opportunity of composition, or to make 
language most cumbersome, and untrue to our convictions. 
The generally accepted dogma, that the mind cannot 
know anything beyond its own modifications ; a dogma 
insisted on by many of the empirical school, finds its ulti- 
mate support in this notion of cause and effect. The exis- 
tence of the object perceived outside of the perceptive or- 
gans, independent of it, removed from it — at least by in- 
sensible distances — has determined the large majority of 
philosophers to deny the possibility of direct perception. 
If, however, the connection of cause and effect, is one of 
antecedence merely, then this separation of the object per- 
ceived, fi-om the organ perceiving it, should oppose no ob- 
stacle whatever to direct perception. A fixed sequence 
can be established between things remote and wholly un- 
like, as easily as between things like; and occupying com- 
mon ground. If therefore, this connection of sequence is 
the deepest, nay the only connection between things 
thought to act on each other, it would seem to suffice for 
knowledge, or if not, to make knowledge impossible. 
How shall even successive states of mind lie fruitfully to- 
gether in simple sequence, if sequence after all is a barren 
connection. If it fails to unite remote, how can it 
unite proximate objects? If one set falls apart, all 
must. 

The general point is too plain for farther statement. 
Evidently the doctrine of simple antecedence does not ex- 
press the universal conviction, does not cover the pheno- 
mena under explanation, does not accept and expound the 



THE REASON. I49 

affirmation of knowledge, which every mind is constantly 
making. 

Quite a different explanation of cause and effect has 
come from another quarter. Sir William Hamilton applies 
to it what he terms the law of the conditioned. The no- 
tion of causality is thought by him to arise from the weakness 
of the mind, its inability to conceive a beginning. The 
mind, he affirms is unable to conceive events without a be- 
ginning, nor yet with a beginning. ' ' We can conceive 
neither the absolute commencement, nor the absolute ter- 
mination of anything that is once thought to exist ; nor 
any more the opposite alternative of infinite non-commence- 
ment, of infinite non-termination. " Herein is given the 
principle of causality : ' ' When an object is presented phe- 
nomenally as commencing, we cannot but suppose that the 
compliment of existence, which it now contains, has pre- 
viously been ; in other words, that all that we at present 
come to know in it as an effect, must previously have exist- 
ed in its cause. " This is a most inadequate explanation for 
several reasons. In the first place, it inverts the order of 
dependence in our mental action. We cannot conceive of 
anything as absolutely commencing, because of this notion 
of cause and effect. The existence of the notion is the 
ground of our embarrassment, not the embarrassment the 
occasion of the notion. What would be simpler, were it 
not for causality crowding us backward, than merely to 
conceive any landscape, any personage, any event, with no 
thought of what has preceded it .? The present act of the 
imagination is not conditioned on the past, neither should 
we be compelled to evoke the present from the past, any 
more than to carry it forward into the future, were it not for 
causation. Any cross-section of the events of time would 
be as complete as a single pebble on the shore. 

Thus, often in dreams, when the imagination finds un- 
restrained phenomenal play, the judgment not being suffi- 



150 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

ciently active to impose the check of this purely sub-pheno 
menal idea of causation, we in a great measure disregard .'t, 
and, with no other sense of jar, suiTer the sudden, unex- 
plained presence of unexpected persons, and an incon- 
gruous order and issue of events. The ideas regulative of 
space and time relations are present, while cause and effect, 
regulative of consecutive thought, is in whole or in part 
overlooked. A city makes its appearance suddenly, the 
ship moves unobstructedly across the land, the facts and fig- 
ures of fancy come and go freely, bound to no ordinary 
sequence. 

A second objection is found in the fact that the theory 
affords no explanation of the alternative adopted by it. 
We can neither conceive, it is said, the commencement, nor 
the non-commencement of anything. Very well, but how 
is this dilemma to be escaped by the present notion of cau- 
sation. The conclusion accepted under it of " infinite 
non-commencement " remains as inconceivable as ever, 
and therefore, as far as the conception is concerned, pre- 
sents as many difficulties as would the opposed alternative 
of an immediate, independent beginning of events. If the 
mind is as open to one of these conclusions as to the 
other, and can properly be satisfied with neither, what rea- 
son has it for preferring one to the other ? The difficulty is 
met only when causation is made a positive notion, com- 
pelling us in the one direction. Accompany this accep- 
tance with a denial of our right to direct the imagination in 
explanation to that which, according to our very notion of 
it, is sub-phenomenal, and we have at once the ability and 
the inability of the mind explained. We have a reason for 
its convictions, and also for their inconceivable character. 

Again, this theory is a concealed theory of antecedence, 
and fails to cover the strict idea of causation. The real, 
efficient cause is present with the effect, immediately under- 
lies it, and sustains it. Thus the substance and force, 



THE REASON. I5I 

which constitutes matter, each instant gives occasion to its 
qualities. The power, the personal being, which is in 
mind, is the groundwork and source of its thoughts, feel- 
ings and volitions. The stream of causation flows under 
the stream of events, and momentarily floats them, as the 
surface of the ocean is supported by its invisible depths. 
Simply to insist on an antecedent event to every event, is to 
throw up the phenomenal path along which the imagina- 
tion travels, but is not a recognition of the true force and 
nature of causation. The imagination exploring the past, 
does indeed require that distinct, tangibk foot-stones 
should, in due order, link its steps ; but that which impels 
the mind in thus sending it to search its way backward, is 
a sense of an unbroken series of causes, and that which 
the mind finds everywhere beneath the phenomenal, sup- 
ports of the imagination is the permanent power and flow 
of causes. This theory of the weakness of the human 
mind signally fails to account for so positive and pervasive 
a notion as this of cause and effect. 

If we accept this notion in its full, universal application, 
leading us to those invisible forces which thread together 
the phenomena of the universe ; if we do not deny or 
limit the facts presented to us in our own spontaneous be- 
liefs, in universal action and universal language, it is at 
once evident, that this idea must have a direct, intuitive 
origin. Admittedly it transcends all experience, is wholly 
unapproachable by the senses. The presence of such a 
notion, evinced by language, by science, by philosophy, by 
our spontaneous and inevitable interpretation of events, is 
undeniable ; to discard it as a gratuitous assumption of 
the mind, as a purely fanciful notion superinduced on the 
fads, is to deny and not to explain, the phenomena of the 
mind ; is to construct our theories in neglect of the facts 
too broad for them ; is to invalidate an action of mind, as 
universal as strong in the confidence and spontaneous trust 



-T52 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

of the mind itself, as any of its processes. This is to make 
our several forms of activity, intuitive and rationative, con- 
tradictory and self-destructive; is to bring one form of 
knowing from its own field into that of another faculty, 
and, because it fails, as it must necessarily fail, to un- 
'derstand the diverse action of a power, given on purpose to 
do a work different from its own, to expel as fictitious and 
fanciful, conclusions wrought out by a special, native power 
of mind. Daily life pursues its hourly labors ; natural 
science accomplishes its great achievements, ollowing the 
clue of causation ; and yet a speculation termed philosophy 
steps in to declare the light under which these processes 
proceed, wholly false and deceptive. We do see by it, and 
we do, indeed, walk by it, and reach most valuable conclu- 
sions. Extinguish it, and we grope in darkness, yet it is no 
light, says philosophy, because, forsooth, not kindled by the 
match-friction of experience, and there are no lights but 
these dipped candles called generalizations, boxed and 
labeled by us. It seems to be light, and does mar\'elously 
well the work of light, and all men insist on using it as 
light ; yet evidently it is not the tallow taper we are after ; 
we cannot handle it as we wish, trace its making, or dis- 
cover the mould in which it was run. This, then, cannot 
be our predetermined light, and as there is no other, it 
follows plainly that this is not light, but darkness rather. 
Correct ideas must come from experience, and be capable 
of its verification ; this is not so reached, and cannot be so 
explained ; therefore it is no valid notion. In all this 
there is a flagrant begging of the question. We thus 
•put the grounds and tests of validity in the faculties that 
directly concern experience, and then deny validity to ideas 
that must confessedly, if they exist at all, transcend expe- 
rience and the judgments which unfold it. 

The doctrine of intuitive ideas is often damaged by its 
advocates. It is asserted that consciousness testifies to much 



THE REASON. 1 53 

not referable to this source. The direct matter of con- 
sciousness, sensations, thoughts, feelings, volitions, are un- 
deniable. There is no ground for dispute, when any fact is 
a direct product of consciousness, that is, belongs to men- 
tal states. It is quite a different question, What is involved 
in the data of consciousness .'* The accuracy, the validity 
of our judgments, the ideas under which they proceed are . 
to be arrived at by analysis, by reasoning, and are not di- 
rectly vouched for by consciousness. 

It is sometimes said we are conscious of force, and 
therefore of a cause in putting forth voluntary effort. The 
true statement would rather seem to be, we are conscious 
of volition, and of the subsequent sensations which accom- 
pany action, but not at all of the hidden link of power 
which unites them. Indeed, it is not always possible for 
us to tell whether the intended muscular result will follow 
the volition. Some paralysis may have intervened, arrest- 
ing the flow of power, and the interior connection lies so 
wholly beyond consciousness, that we can only determine 
the presence or absence of suitable muscular conditions by 
a tentative effort at movement. If we were conscious of 
force, force itself would be phenomenal, and lose its sub- 
phenomenal character. It would cease to be a causal idea, 
and would become a sensible fact or effect. 

The simplest statement of causation is. Every effect 
must have a cause. In this is involved the expectation of 
the perpetuity of nature, since every change in the effect, as 
itself an effect, would demand a new, specific cause. 
With no apparent change in causes, we anticipate previous 
results, since this must follow from the unchanged forms 
and conditions of action. A prolonged duration of the 
present physical system is expected by us, unless we see, or 
think we see, reasons for change in the government of 
God, or grounds of change in the system itself — an intro- 
duction at some point of new forces. 



154 PRI^XIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

§ 8. The six ideas now presented all pertain to matter, 
though most of them are also applicable to mental pheno- 
mena. The five that remain belong exclusively to the con- 
ceptions, the facts of mind. None of these pertain directly 
to matter, as matter. They all involve the existence, or 
previous action of thought. The first of them is conscious- 
ness. There has been no debate concerning this idea, be- 
cause it has not been presented as belonging to this depart- 
ment of our intellectual furniture. If, however, it shall 
appear that consciousness exists in idea rather than in sub- 
stance or quality, that it is therefore directly arrived at by 
the mind, and also that it furnishes the distinctive feature 
or style or form of a class of phenomena, the transcendent 
predicate of a series of judgments, it will be plain that it 
belongs properly to the class of regulative notions. Con- 
sciousness is often spoken of as if it were a faculty, a form 
of knowing ; yet a little thought at once shows that it is 
not. I see a ball. I say in farther enforcement, I know 
that I see it. This language has divided the first simple 
act into two, an act of perceiving, and one of knowing 
directed toward that of perception. Yet this is merely a 
convenience of expression. The one single act of seeing 
the ball is all that is present. If there were a second act 
of knowing, this also would require sub-division in order 
to reach the element of consciousness in it. Thus -analy- 
sis must go on indefinitely, unless we finally accept an act 
of knowing which is simple and indivisible. There is no 
double faculty, or double movement of one faculty, in 
thinking, feeling, willing. A thought is a thought, only 
as it is known; a feeling is a feeling, only as it is felt. 
They do not first find existence, and then an added quality 
or element of consciousness ; but consciousness is the 
condition and form of their existence. Consciousness, 
then, is not, like judgment, a power ; nor like pain or plea- 
sure, a quality of certain states ; it is not a feature or a re- 



THE REASON, I 55 

lation of a sensation, but involved in the very notion of a 
sensation. This idea, therefore, as neither a faculty to be 
known by its exercise, nor a quality of mental states to be 
learned by observation — indeed every act of observation, 
must itself contain it — must be evolved by the mind as an 
explanatory idea, or conditional notion in considering the 
phenomena to which it is applicable. 

It is not only unphenomenal itself, it is introduced as 
the antecedent condition, the regulative idea of a large 
class of facts, to wit : those of mind. What space is to 
material facts, consciousness is to intellectual facts, the in- 
terpreting light under which they occur. The words we con- 
stantly app.ly to it, recognize this relation. We say, ' ' the 
field of consciousness," "transpiring in consciousness," 
' ' coming up into the light of consciousness, " ' ' the flow 
of consciousness " — that is of thought, feeling, in conscious- 
ness. These and like expressions are shaped under an 
image in which consciousness is presented as an arena of 
mental movements, as is space of physical events. The 
peculiar nature of knowing, feeling, willing, is not under- 
stood till the idea of consciousness is present : yet these 
facts remain in their integrity possessed of all the elements 
that analysis discloses in them, without accrediting to it 
any distinct, additive form or quality of being. Conscious- 
ness thus shows itself to be to the inner, invisible world, 
what space is to the outer, visible one ; the condition of its 
existence, the only canvas on which its colors can appear. 
To occupy space, is to have physical existence, to occupy 
consciousness is to have an intellectual existence, to occu- 
. py neither is not to exist, is to present no one of the 
known forms of existence. This idea is seen to be regu- 
lative in the large class of propositions which arise under 
it. I know ; I see the book ; I feel the pain, are of this 
sort. Each of them is comprehended by virtue of the no- 



156 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tion of consciousness, which expounds their several pre- 
dicates. 

This view also finds support in the difficulties which at- 
tend on the ordinary explanations of consciousness. What 
is it ? is a question that has greatly perplexed philosophy 
and has seldom received a very definite answer. Some 
have striven to conceive it as a faculty, yet this faculty, must 
be present in the action of every other faculty, and that 
other faculty would be absolutely null and void without 
this. To divide an act of knowing into one of knowing, 
and one of consciousness, each taking a distinct moiety, is 
impossible. Others have said, " Consciousness is the ge- 
nus under which our several faculties of knowing are 
contained as species." But our faculties of knowing, no 
more require it than those of feeling and willing ; and 
what exactly is a genus in distinction from the species it 
contains ? Nothing, but a word. Certainly an effort to 
make definite this view, prepares the way for regarding 
consciousness as a general idea, under which all specific 
acts of mind, in themselves complete, find recognition. 
Others figure consciousness under the image of an internal 
light. This is virtually to decline the inquiry. What is it ? 
since the illustration can reflect no explanation on this 
point. 

§ 9. The second idea regulative of our intellectual life is 
that of beauty. Concerning the existence at this point of 
peculiar phenomena that require explanation, there is no dis- 
cussion. Yet results of analysis are quite different ; some 
reaching a simple, original idea ; others resolving beauty 
into utility, or unity and variety, or making it the product 
of association. That beauty is intimately connected with 
utility, that it is always accompanied by unity and variety, 
that taste is strongly influenced by association, and, in some 
cases overshadowed by it, are undeniable ; yet that these 
explanations, in conflict among themselves, fail each of 



THE REASON. 157 

them to cover the entire facts, seems equally plain. Beau- 
ty is not proportioned to utility, is not always attendant up- 
on it, exists sometimes with little or no utility, save that 
which the gratification of taste itself affords. Unity and va- 
riety are frequently present with no corresponding beauty, 
belong to structures which do not pertain to the fine arts, 
and thus show an independent existence and range. As- " 
sociation explains many of the judgments of those who give 
little attention to intrinsic beauty, who under the influence 
of others yield their opinions to be swayed by the prevalent 
sentiment ; yet just in proportion as the presence of taste is 
manifest, as the perception of beauty is developed, as the 
phenomena to be accounted for are obvious and declared, 
this explanation fails. The leaders in fine art have no 
higher association from which to derive their estimates of 
excellence, while the different, external, accidental plea- 
sures, that may for them incidentally find connection with 
works of art, are no sufficient ground for their high, 
common, uniform estimates, singling these forth in all 
generations as objects of peculiar power and value. 

But this theory of association, of character transferred to 
objects of beauty from the relations in which we find them, 
is met by the fact, that we have a pertinent example of what 
association can do in affecting our estimates of things ; and 
that it wholly fails to sustain the explanation here offered 
of the facts of taste. The admiration the general public 
express for a new fashion is almost wholly due to associa- 
tion, and what are its characteristics .-' This esteem is fickle, 
contradictory, and wholly destitute of standards of judgment. 
Though in the present, unanimity may be complete, sue- , 
cessive periods differ greatly in the forms rejected and ac- 
cepted. Fortuity and the most extravagant fancies reign, 
and are equally imperious in their contradictory commands. 
The whole realm of fashion is one of unreasoning associa- 
tion, and it stands in conspicuous contrast with that of taste, 



158 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

refuting the explanation offered of its stable phenomena. 
The uniform admiration bestowed by different nations and 
generations on objects of beauty ; the first high estimates 
which give direction to public opinion ; the word beauty, 
accepting in careful speech no synonym ; the fine arts, a 
distinctly bounded territory, eliciting the most skillful and 
prolonged attention ; and the well-established principles of 
this department, show that the fickle, fanciful connections 
of association furnish no sufficient theory of taste. 

That the quality, beauty, accepted as unresolvable into 
any other, is of intuitive origin is seen in the fact, that it is 
not directly a quality of things, but of intellections. An 
intellection is the product of the mind. The qualities, 
forms, and relations of an object, its expression are by 
studious observation brought before the mind. This esti- 
mate which the intellect makes of all that unfolds the char- 
acter, the emotional power of an object, is an intellection, 
and in the object thus conceived, thus unfolded in the 
thoughts, beauty is seen to inhere. As beauty thus does not 
belong to a flower, a tree, a landscape, a bird, a man, 
merely as a sensible object, but to them as products of an 
arranging, vitalizing, perfecting power ; as it is seen not 
in the thing simply, but in it as conceived by the mind, 
it must be the object of an interior, intuitive faculty, which 
can take into its contemplation the appropriate intellection. 
There has followed perception, an act of exposition more 
or less complete, and thus the object has been taken from 
the senses into the mind, and has there awaited the insight of 
the reason. The qualities one and all which make up the 
expression pronounced beautiful are not the very beauty 
which we attribute to the cathedral, the painting, or the 
statue. The skill, proportion, height of the towering edi- 
fice may be discerned separately from that final effect, that 
joint and supersensual power, that more than analytic plea- 
sure, which we term beauty. This is not the craft of the 
workman, the single nor the combined excellences of the 



THE REASON. 1 59 

work, but an overshadowing quality, through which these 
have their chief value, by which the seal of a fine art is put 
upon them. The intellectual relations, qualities, powers 
of an object, capable only of an inner presentation, are 
that in which, as substance, the reason sees beauty to inhere. 
Beauty is not these simply, though it comes and goes with 
their varying combinations. 

§ lo. We have now reached an idea, whose nature and 
origin have been the occasion of much diversity of opinion. 
The conclusion we arrive at as to the nature of right, will 
profoundly affect our intellectual and practical life. The 
phenomena that call forth the discussion, though often 
narrowed by the theory adopted for their explanation, are, 
in a general way, accepted and agreed upon. They are 
these. Certain forms of action are known by us as right, 
others are wrong ; a sense of obligation accompanies the 
former when urged upon us, and of satisfaction and ap- 
proval when performed by us. The latter, on the other 
hand, when distinctly contemplated as wrong, deter the 
mind from acceptance by a minatory sense of duty, and 
punish the commission by a clear feeling of guilt. Of the 
presence and operation of these facts, history and language 
are full. Neither the speech nor the actions, the laws, 
nor the religion of men, are intelligible without them. 
The testimony of individual experience is repeated in 
that of communities and nations. From the beginning 
men have been dealing with virtuous and vicious acts, 
with right and wrong courses of conduct, with innocence 
and guilt, responsibility and irresponsibility, honor and 
shame, praise and censure, rewards and punishments. 
These ethical ideas grow in the race as it advances. 
Our legislation, our social institutions, our daily ac- 
tions, our religious beliefs are full of them ; and new 
labors of reform are constantly putting them into more 
pithy and pungent shape. Ethical science commands 
a large share of attention, and takes under its sur- 



l6o PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

vey more and more broadly the actions of men. The 
shades of feeling involved vary from remorse and despair 
to the slightest uneasiness, from the triumphant self-justifi- 
cation of the martyr to a transient thrill of delight. Sin, 
wickedness, guilt, duty, right, righteousness, integrity, jus- 
tice, holiness, are a few of the weighty words under which 
these grave thoughts take their way. 

The facts involved being thus comparatively bold and 
salient, in a measure admitted by all, what is that theory of 
intellectual powers which best covers and expounds them ? 
The perception of right, and the feeling of obligation, are 
inseparable ; they are the intellectual and emotional sides 
of one mental state. An obligation cannot be felt without 
some direction or line of action to which it attaches. An 
obligation must be of a specific, definite character. An ob- 
ligation without attachment to any act, is unintelligible, is 
no obligation. The quality right, seen in an act, is that 
which at once calls forth the feeling of duty, and directs it 
into a particular channel. No more can the perception be 
separated from the feeling than the feeling from the percep- 
tion. Indeed, it is chiefly through the strong sentiment 
that accompanies it, that we discover the distinct character 
of the intuitive act. Language abundantly recognizes this 
double bearing of ethical insight. We have the word right, 
primarily expressive of the intellectual quality of the action; 
and the words, ought, obligation, duty, presenting chiefly 
the emotional element. 

The theories which do not accept the original, simple, in- 
separable character of the idea right, explain the intellectual 
element by the generalized notion of utility. This is done 
with very difierent degrees of success by earlier and later 
writers: but nearly all of the empirical school agree in mak- 
ing utility the intellectual ground of ethics. We have ap- 
petites, sensibilities, tastes, aff"ections to be gratified. Any 
thing or action which affords pleasure to any one of these 



PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. r6l 

is useful. The common power which belongs to so many 
objects and relations of furnishing some form of enjoyment, 
or some condition of it, is abstracted under the word utility. 
The inquiry which guides the conscience, which furnishes 
light to moral action, it is said, is this inquiry into pleasure, 
into good, into immediate and future enjoyment ; and 
that if fairly and thoroughly pushed and made to cover all 
gratifications higher and lower, it is an exhaustive statement 
of all that takes place in ethical research. While this is an 
inadequate theory of the intellectual grounds of duty, it is 
difficult to disprove it. What is affirmed by it does take 
place, and is a most apparent and a most necessary part of 
the process by which we arrive at a practical conclusion as 
to a line of action, whether it be right or wrong. The use- 
fulness of an action, in a broad and deep sense of the word, 
is a correct criterion of its moral character ; it becomes, 
therefore, very difficult to show, that it does not cover the 
entire ethical element. 

The truth is, the quality right, like the quality beauty, is 
seen in an intellection, that is in an act whose relations and 
bearings backward and forward have been inquired into and 
settled. What are the results which flow from it ? What 
are the feelings it expresses ? How will it work forward in 
the world of facts ? How does it work backward on the 
emotions ? These are the inquiries which disclose to us 
the intellectual bearings of the action, and prepare us to 
pronounce wisely on its character ; they are also those which 
determine its utility. So far the ground is common to the 
two theories, sensualistic and intuitive. At this point they 
diverge. Says the one philosopher, these facts exhaust in 
the case the grounds of intellectual action ; says the other, 
they prepare the conditions of a final, intuitive act over- 
looked by you, pronouncing the action not useful or other- 
wise, but right or wrong. The last words are not, and can- 
not be measured by the first. In the intellection which we 



1 62 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

have reached in part at least as you have reached it, we dis- 
cover a farther, a transcendent quality, which we term right, 
and from which springs all our ethical action. In this we 
aflirm we have the testimony of language with us, which by 
no means confounds, or allows us to confound, these two 
notions of the right and the useful. Nay, it separates them 
in clean and clear division from each other, reserving an 
emphasis for the one which it never thinks of bestowing on 
the other. 

It is, however, when the emotional element is considered, 
that the utilitarian theory is seen to be most obviously inad- 
missible. It does not satisfactorily meet the question. Whence 
arises the sense of obligation which is the salient feature of 
the right ? It strives to make answer by affirming that the 
feeling of duty is conventionally imposed by the commu- 
nity in satisfaction of its own sentiments, and m view of what 
is advantageous to itself. The obligation of ethical action 
is thus referred wholly to education, to social and civil in- 
stitutions, in their own behalf laying the pressure of duty on 
their subjects. Says Bain, "Authority or punishment is 
the commencement of the state of mind recognized under 
the various names — Conscience, the Moral Sense, the Sen- 
timent of Obligation. The major part of every commu- 
nity adopt certain rules of conduct necessary for the common 
preservation or ministering to the common well-being. * * 
* * Every one, not of himself disposed to follow the rules 
prescribed by the community, is subjected to some infliction 
of pain to supply the absence of other motives : the infiict- 
tion increasing in severity until obedience is attained. It 
is the familiarity with this regime of compulsion, and of suf- 
fering, constantly increasing until resistance is overborne, 
that plants in the infant and youthful mind the first germ 
of the sense of obligation." — TAe Emotions and the Will, p. 
481, His definition of Conscience is, "An ideal resem- 



1 



IHE REASON, 1 63 

blance of public authority, growing up in the individual 
mind, and working to the same end. " 

The community grounds the law of action partly on util- 
ity, and partly on the transient sentiments which possess it, 
and thus, with a variety of sanctions, trains the child to obe- 
dience. " A certain dread and awful impression is thus 
connected with forbidden actions, which is the conscience 
in its earliest germ or manifestation." 

This theory derives a force which does not belong to it, 
from the very fact that social law, appealing, as it often does, 
' to our moral nature, acquires thereby a prescriptive power 
which would not otherwise be attainable. If there were no 
foundation for custom and law in our moral constitution, 
the results of social instruction and discipline would be 
much less than they now are. With this grave advantage 
afforded by the frequent coincidence of our moral constitu- 
tion and social customs, the theory still plainly fails to cov- 
er the facts. It should be observed, moreover, that man's 
protracted and habitual disobedience to moral law has 
weakened its authority, obscured its phenomena, and thus 
greatly aids the eifort to confound it with conventional rule. 
Notwithstanding these causes of obscuration, we believe a 
better theory still remains visible in the facts. 

We have repeated examples of what general agreement 
and enforcement can accomplish, and the results are ofoan- 
other kind or power from those arising under true 
moral force. Take again, from another, point of view, the 
illustration afforded by fashion. A kind of censure to 
which the masses of men are exceedingly sensitive, is con- 
stantly and unsparingly inflicted on those who disregard 
fashion. Yet the most infatuated- devotee of the fickle god- 
dess, would hardly venture to regard scrupulous obedience 
as a virtue. Such an one is quite content if she escapes 
positive censure in her fashionable follies. How very dif- 
ferent, also, the feeling arising from a violated fashion, from 



1 64 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

wearing a proscribed coat or hat, from that which affects 
the sensitive soul under the sense of wrong action. Allow 
each violator to be equally appreciative to the law whose 
precepts have been infringed, and we have, in the one case, 
mortification, and in the other guilt. The most scrupulous 
observance of the details of fashion, of fashion enforced by 
two thirds of the community, cannot, does not, bestow the 
sense of virtue ; nor disobedience the feeling of vice. 

Take again the standard of honor enforced among certain 
classes, as among soldiers, or gamblers, or on the Stock Ex- 
change. The penalties here inflicted on disobedience, are 
as unsparing as the parties can make them. Yet such a 
custom as dueling is broken down by a purely moral sen- 
timent based on the individual conscience, struggling with 
and at length conquering, the general consent of the com- 
munity. It may be answered : Yes, but the sense of 
utility is with those who favor reform. Granted, but it is 
not, under the theory as presented in its present form, the 
notion of utility that imposes obligation, but the concur- 
rent, educational force of the community, and this is fully 
pledged to a custom which nevertheless calls forth on the 
part of a few a staunch condemnation, finding at length 
such response in the consciences of all, as to lead to the 
abandonment of the censured act. Now, if the question 
were one merely of wisdom, there would be no mystery in 
the formation of a new opinion, and hence in a change of 
action. The difficulty under the theory lies in explaining 
how moral obligation, which rests on an educational basis, 
which arises from the enforced sentiment of the many, 
Twhich is the volume of sound made by a multitude of 
voices, can be brought to bear against an overwhelming 
majority, to the breaking down of those very beliefs from 
whence it springs. How can one, two, three, outscream 
the crowd ? How can there arise a counter-sense of duty, 
when this sense is the concurrent opinions of men now 



THE REASON. 1 65 

sustaining as sacred, the censured institution. Duty 
would thus be Hke respectability, popularity. They do go, 
and must go with the dominant party, and cannot be used 
as an incipient force against themselves. 

The thief, the gambler, the speculator, rest their laws on 
an educated sense of honor peculiar to themselves, and 
while they do secure obedience, sometimes more self-sacri- 
ficing and implicit than much of that which arises under 
moral law, it is notoriously with little or no reference to such 
a law. They do not mistake their precepts for morality ; 
they are scrupulous, not conscientious, in their obedience to 
them. Occasionally, to throw a slight coloring of morality, 
of self-justification, over their actions, is the most they aim 
at. In a community in which slavery for many generations 
has been the law of the land, we find, nevertheless, an in- 
dependent moral element getting a foothold. 'Conscience 
is appealed to, and a vigorous moral warfare springs up in 
the teeth of uniform custom. Nor do those who justify 
slavery, do it on the ground of uniform practice, except so 
far as this is regarded as an expression of opinion on the 
part of those who have thus held their fellows in bondage. 
Other grounds than the mere fact of custom are sought, 
grounds which, so far as they exist, have a true justifica- 
tory element in them. The good condition of the slave ; 
his inferiority ; the general social order ; the exigencies of 
the case. I may almost say, that never is the appeal di- 
rectly made between intelligent parties in an ethical dis- 
cussion to naked custom and its penalties, for the justifica- 
tion of a line of conduct. Yet the theory insists, that this 
common sentiment is the source of obligation, and ought 
therefore to be the constant reference. This is a fact very 
damaging to the explanations offered. Men are never 
reverting to the bare fact of enforced law, as the ground 
and justification of law ; yet this after all is made the 
source of the sense of law. Moreover in the very face of 



1 66 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

such enforcement, there does spring up in single minds, a 
moral sentiment, which, with pure moral power, breaks 
down institutions hitherto unanimously sustained. We thus 
see what proscriptive force can do ; that it is by no means 
identical with morality, and that it frequently comes in 
contact with the power this manifests, and yields to it. 

Again this theory fails most signally in cases in which the 
moral phenomena are most distinct, most declared. In the 
explanation of mixed conduct, of actions assuming an 
ethical form, disguising themselves under moral sentiments, 
it prospers somewhat ; but when the moral element is 
prominent and pure, it comes short. A conscientious 
man becomes a martyr to his convictions of duty. He 
stands against the community, and confronts its authority, 
its alleged line of duty, with his own independent convic- 
tions, his own sense of what is right. All the explanation 
of these most startling and pregnant facts in the world's 
moral history, facts that above all others catch the rational 
eye, and disclose the new force that is flaming up in them, 
is that of the ' ' Self-originating or Idiosyncratic Conscience. " 
It is an instance of " the transfer of the sentiment of prohi- 
bition from a recognized case, to one not recognized. " That 
is to say, with no notion of obligation but the enforced one 
of education ; the individual may, nevertheless, transfer it 
so strictly to his own independent, unsustained specula- 
tions as to oppose these serenely and unhesitatingly to the 
utmost stretch of the authority of the community over him. 
This is a transfer indeed, a transfer that is a transformation, 
that discloses a sentiment in kind and quality, totally un- 
like that with which it commenced. It went into the co- 
coon a worm, it comes out a butterfly. This is no explan- 
ation ; it is a confession of defeat. Better would it have 
been to have left the phenomena unexplained. 

Kindred expositions, insufficient to cover the facts to 
which they are applied, are found everywhere in the works 



THE REASON. 1 67 

of philosophers who advocate this theory of morals. "By 
remorse, we understand the strongest form of self-reproach 
arising from a deep downfall of self-respect and esteem. " 
The Emotions and the Will, page io6. 

This definition applies to a conspicuous act of misjudg- 
ment, and most plainly does not reach the fact of remorse. 
Again, love is said to be "as purely self-seeking as any other 
pleasure, and to make no inquiry as to the feelings of the 
beloved personality." This assertion leaves out the entire 
moral element which belongs to love as an affection, and is 
true of it only as a passion. The peculiar effect of " sig- 
nal generosity " is referred to the ' ' shock, " given to the 
"mind totally unprepared," to see kind offices rendered to 
an enemy. Mill makes our sympathies with others in 
their injuries the basis of our sentiments of justice, a con- 
dition of feeling, certainly, which as often perverts justice 
as secures it. These and kindred solutions, show the 
weakness of utilitarianism in handling striking moral fac's, 
and how greatly it abridges and mars the facts themselves 
by a forced, belittling estimate of them. 

Nor is the sense of obligation any more satisfactorily ac- 
counted for under this theory by referring it directly to the 
idea of utility. At times, Mr. Mill seems ready to do 
this. As the useful in the concrete is but the pleasurable, 
this reference would involve the assertion, that pleasure, as 
pleasure, is felt in human experience to be obligatory. 
This would farther include the statement, the stronger the 
pleasure, the greater the sense of duty; and, as our own en- 
joyments are more distinctly conceived than those of 
others, that these are pre-eminently enforced in practical 
morals; and farther, as present gratification yields more in- 
tense feeling than anticipated indulgence, that the pleasures 
of the hour are especially watched over by conscience. 
Each and all of these conclusions are in exact contradic- 
tion of the facts. If there is anything in reference to which 



-1 68 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

we feel ourselves left to our own unrestrained choices, it is 
our pleasures. The moral nature has not laid upon it the 
superfluous task of enforcing these ; but rather that of re- 
straining them. By playing cunningly between the two, 
public sentiment on the one hand, and utility on the other,' 
some embarrassments may be evaded by the theorist, yet 
neither nor both can be successfully made the source of 
the sense of duty. 

While these failures of explanation rob utilitarianism of 
all claims to acceptance, is there not in it a yet deeper 
difficulty in supposing that a simple notion, like that or 
obligation, can be other than primitive and independent ot 
the action of society ? What would be thought of a philo- 
sophy that should refer compassion, love, hope, as induced 
feelings, to the influence of others over the mind. Evident- 
ly all extraneous action is of no avail to awaken a feeling 
not given in the emotional constitution itself A sense of 
duty, of obligation, is as simple as any emotion can be, 
and if we acknowledge its presence, we must look on it as 
primitive in our constitution. But a sense of obligation 
has no significance, is not intelligible as a general unat- 
tached feeling, indicating no definite line of conduct, 
haunting the mind as a vague, premonitory fear, ready to 
be seized on by the first foreign force, to be applied as an 
alien impulse, having no necessary existence in the individ- 
ual, or office for him. The imposed opinion of others cannot 
create a feeling ; the feeling of duty, like every feeling, 
must have a deeper basis than this. A general notion of 
obligation, with no intellectual element, no specific direc- 
,tion given to it by the mind whose it is, is as unintelligible 
as would be a general impression of truth, or delight in 
truth, with nothing presenting itself as truth ; or a vague 
satisfaction in beauty, with no object regarded by us as 
beautiful. What can be found in our constitution, allied to 
such an unattached, unelicited emotion ? The vague feel- 



THE REASON. 1 69 

ings of fear sometimes present to the mind, nevertheless 
disclose to more careful inquiry some occasion and ground 
of attachment in past experience and existing circumstances. 

■ Further, we do not day by day impose these duties on 
others in the manner that would be indicated by the above 
theory. Scarcely anything could be more adverse to the 
methods of those who are constantly using moral force, 
who are addressing and stimulating the conscience, than an 
appeal to the common sentiments, that is popular senti- 
ments, of those approached. Indeed, to such persons it 
would seem unworthy, sometimes even absolutely immoral, 
to urge action on others, primarily on the ground of the cus- 
toms and censures of general society. Nor could these 
censures often be made to subserve the purposes of moral- 
ity. The apostle of moral truth expects more frequently 
than otherwise to confront this public sentiment, and his 
appeal is not, to what has been or is, but to the individual 
idea of what ought to be. The practice therefore which 
would flow logically from this theory of enforced morals, 
is not at all the practice of the actual, ethical world ; it is 
rather that of those classes who are feared and warred 
against, as always careless of the law of right, and often 
disobedient to it. 

There are but two open, plausible theories of our moral 
constitution : the one which recognizes it as an original, 
independent part of our constitution ; and the one which, 
through generalization, explains its manifestations by the 
facts of our physical and social. position, making utility and 
public sentiment the germs of its intellectual and emotional 
elements. The last, in its pure, naked form, produces a 
far off semblance of the facts, replacing love and duty with 
fear and interest, and mistaking the forces at work in a self- 
ish, immoral world, for the true constitutional Imks of a 
higher, an holier, state. 

There are, however, theories which strive to combine 



l-JO PRINXIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

these two, and while in the last analysis, they are utilitarian 
in their principles, they keep aloof from the avowal, and sur- 
reptitiously include elements which only logically belong to 
an intuitive philosophy. Utilitarianism relies on the happi- 
ness aflbrded by correct action as the sole motive to it, and 
falls short of ethics in not being able to impose any line of ac- 
tion with authority, or to enforce one form of enjoyment in 
preference to another. Indeed, it has no sufficient stand- 
ard by which to decide between pleasures, and to prefer 
one class above another. The question of the actual satis- 
faction experienced by different persons in different lines of 
action, must, like that of physical tastes, be left with the in- 
dividual, and if he prefer physical, to intellectual and social 
enjoyments, one cannot, under a mere law of highest grati- 
fication, impose on him the opinions of others, though he 
may deem them wiser. I do not need to inquire of a phi- 
losopher as to which apple is sweet, and which sour, which 
agreeable, and which disagreeable ; nor shall I much re- 
spect his view if it differs from my own. Thus, in all 
questions of pure pleasure, each man has his bias, and is 
not likely to yield it to a speculation that runs counter to 
his own experience, the final interpreter to him of the na- 
ture and quality of enjoyments. 

An effort to obviate this difficulty has been made by af- 
firming the superior, the ineffable character of moral plea- 
sures, the ' ' blessedness " of obedience, and from this su- 
preme satisfaction, this supreme quality of ethical pleasure, 
to reflect back on the actions which secure it a sense of ob- 
ligation. Herein is found the stolen element of a better 
theory. If we rely on the good which diverse lines of con- 
duct and indulgence produce to define and enforce our ac- 
tion, then we are entitled to these several kinds and degrees 
of satisfaction to direct and establish conduct, and to no 
more. Let all the sources of pleasure, making the catalogue 
as discriminating and exhaustive as you please, be represent- 



THE REASON. I7I 

ed by trie letters A, B, C, D, E. Let each one choose be- 
tween them as he, under the guidance of his own tastes and 
capabihties, is able, in kind, degree, duration, difficulty of 
attainment ; and thus mark out for himself the path of pru- 
dence. He cannot now go farther, and add to the motives 
urging any one proposed line of conduct a peculiar blessed- 
ness which is to crown it as right above all others. This is 
to establish again in our constitution a moral law, to restore 
to it intrinsic obligation, and thus secure the unspeakable 
satisfaction of obedience. All that our quiet, careful rea- 
soner, overlooking the various sources of pleasure, and 
choosing between them, is entitled to, is, if he select wisely, 
the satisfaction of sagacity. He is always right when he is 
prudent, and the rewards of right sink to those of pru- 
dence. The self-congratulation of shrewdness, of quiet 
forethought, takes the place of an approving conscience, of 
the blessedness of a law implicitly obeyed, clung to in dark- 
ness and in light. No peculiar happiness can follow obe- 
dience to right, till we have recognized it as an antecedent, 
supreme, self-enforced law. As long as it remains a line 
of conduct resting for support on its pleasurable results, it 
must look to these exclusively, adding nothing to them, 
save the satisfaction of sagacity, and the delight of prudence 
following the mind in any line of conduct whatsoever that 
has drawn forth a shrewd play of powers. We are not, un- 
der the name of blessedness, to steal away the fruits of obe- 
dience to an independent law, and by means of this reflect 
authority on a simple precept of wisdom. The right must 
come before the satisfaction which springs from obeying it. 
Herein is revealed a difficulty which more or less em- 
barrasses every presentation of the utilitarian theoiy. We do 
indeed grant, that what is right is always ultimately in a 
broad sense useful, but the moral nature, itself an inde- 
pendent means of gratification, a pre-eminent source of 
good, is often the necessary condition of its being so. 



172 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

The martyr sets this one pleasure over against all other 
pleasures, and wisely ; yet he never would have done this, 
ifhehad started withthe idea that the right action is only the 
sagacious choice between enjoyments other than those 
which belong to the moral constitution. We are not in 
our theories to have, and not to have, at the same time, the 
law and the rewards of conscience, of the moral intui- 
tion. We are not to make ethical pleasures to arise simply 
from the successful pursuit of other pleasures, and yet al- 
low them themselves to be furtively included among these 
pleasures between which we are deciding. Many lines of 
action are obviously useful when accompanied with the 
gratification of our moral sensibilities, which are not so, 
when these, as independent sources of good, are left out of 
the calculation, as they must be in any honest evolution of 
a utilitarian theory. 

A philosopher may assign to pleasures an order of pre- 
cedence satisfactory to himself, may give sufficient ground 
on which to choose between them, yet he therein bestows 
no sense of obligation upon any of them, nor can he en- 
force his view of their respective rank, except as it con- 
forms to the experience of others. Enjoyments are not so 
much dependent on judgments as on sensibilities. 

Nor is the intuitive philosophy, rightly presented, at all 
open to the repeated taunts of Bentham, that each indivi- 
dual by a blind irrational power may thus pretend to de- 
cide what is right, and capriciously lay down a law absolute 
for himself and for others. All the investigation that Ben- 
tham or any other philosopher may bring to the practical 
effects of action, to its immediate and ultimate results, 
finds a place in our moral judgments. It is in the full in- 
tellections made up by exhaustive inquir>', that the reason 
sees the right and affirms its obligation. We might as 
well say, because the judge authoritatively decides a case, 
it is of no avail for the lawyers thoroughly to present it, as 



THE REASON. 1 73 

to say, that because conscience adjudicates between right and 
wrong, it is of no moment that the action to which the 
discussion pertains should be fully understood. It is the 
intellectual conception of this action which is declared 
right, and if this conception is incomplete, then a verdict 
intrinsically correct is practically false, as pronounced on a 
hypothetical case, and not a real one. The last decision, 
that of conscience, we believe to be correct ; the presenta- 
tion of the case, that on which this decision is made, to be, 
as often as otherwise, incorrect. Here enter the full fruits of 
investigation and protracted experience, an opportunity for a 
broad, honest, faithful survey of the facts of the exact case to 
be made and presented at the judgment-seat of the ethical 
sense. This merely gives new authority the weight and the 
character of law, to what the other faculties have pro- 
nounced upon as prudent and wise. There is no more 
opportunity for caprice, and individual assumption here, 
than in any debate concerning the qualities and bearings 
of actions — for instance their usefulness. 

We designate in common language as conscience that 
action of the reason which discovers the right, and this is 
the ground or centre of our entire moral nature. Any the- 
ory which regards obligation as simple and ultimate, there- 
in accepts the intuitive and independent nature of the right, 
in the meaning in which we have employed it. Obligation 
must arise in view of something, and in view of it in a 7no- 
ral relation. This perceptive element is inseparable from 
the emotional element, and, together, they constitute the 
idea, right ; as a certain form of perception and the plea- 
sure therefrom, constitute the intuition of beauty. The two 
are as indivisible as the flavor and savor of a peach, the per- 
ception of the one and the enjoyment of the other. We can 
no more talk of the ultimate nature of obligation and the 
derived, secondary nature of the right, than of a simple, 
final sense-pleasure, deduced inferentially from certain pre- 



174 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

mises. The pleasure is no more ultimate, than the percep- 
tion which gives rise to it, as they are inseparable. Moral 
feelings that are peculiar necessitate intuitions as peculiar, 
which may be their basis. Otherwise we have intellectual 
feelings with no ground or occasion for them. Nor can it 
be rightly said, that "virtue is not the choice or love of vir- 
tue, or of right ; it is the love of God and of our neigh- 
bor as ourselves — the willing of good — the good will." 
Love' has a moral quality only as it contemplates moral ac- 
tions or moral relations, and these are suffused through and 
through with obligation. Any other love than this is either. 
constitutional, or calculating ; either instinctive, or selfish. 
The moral law is in and under spontaneous moral obedi- 
ence, as truly as under constrained obedience. 

The system of ethics to be evolved from the above view is 
briefly this. All moral emotions, the entire moral nature is 
conditioned on a moral intuition, which we term that of 
right. This quality or relation of rational acts, arrived at 
by a simple, ultimate stroke of the eye of reason, in grounds 
or premises previously unfolded, and which uniformly relate 
to the actions of free, intelligent, sensitive beings, involves as 
an inseparable element the feeling of obligation. Here is 
the final authority of morals in the moral intuition. A rea- 
son can be given for the decisions of conscience in this 
sense, that the character and bearings of the acts pronounced 
right can be given ; not in this sense, that the intellectually 
discerned relations of these actions are, aside from a dis- 
tinct action of the moral faculty upon them, a ground of 
obligation. No ' ' supreme end " can of itself inspire a feel- 
ing of obligation, since there can be no such end till the 
moral intuition has given it its authority, its supreme posi- 
tion. No " good, " as a good, can give a law, can give a 
moral basis of action, since to do this it must go beyond its 
own appetitive range, and reach into the moral field of au- 
thority. It is to account for authority that we invoke the 



THE REASON. 1 75 

moral nature. No "worthiness " of the individual can ex- 
plain the authority of the right action, for it is this very au- 
thority which makes it so infinitely worthy of him. In a dozen 
cunning ways the consequences of right action may be 
made to reflect an explanation back on the right itself. 
They all fail, for the simple reason that effects are found in 
causes, not causes in effects. In this discussion we have 
used the word right as expressive of the moral law itself, or 
that intuition which gives such a law, not of the conformity 
of action to that law. 

§ II. The regulative idea we have now arrived at, that 
of liberty, presents many difficulties. A more . convenient 
opportunity for the discussion of these will be presented un- 
der volition. We shall now strive merely to show, that it 
belongs with intuitive ideas. Proof of the actual possession 
of liberty by man as a voluntary agent, and a precise state- 
ment of what is involved therein, will be presented later. 
Liberty is to be distinguished on the one side from those 
necessarj' connections which are causal in character, and on 
the other, from chance, fortuity, the denial of all depend- 
ence on antecedents. Indeed, strictly construed there can 
be no chance events. The positive notions of causation and 
liberty, which cover the entire phenomenal field, do not 
permit them. It is only under the qualified form, as events 
with unknown or incalculable causes, that chance ever ap- 
pears in the field of facts. Liberty allows the influence of 
motives, but not the measured, definite, irresistible influence. 
We admit and deny in the same instant the application of 
the word influence, admit the word in its substance, deny 
it in the form which its connection with causal events has 
given it. Herein is the peculiar and primitive character of 
the conception, that of a connection which is not necessary, 
of persuasion which is not imperative in either branch of the 
alternative, of influence which does not push with a fked, 
determinative force towards a given volition. The will is 



176 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

neither wholly capricious, nor mathematically calculable in 
its action. It is free, and submits freely, so far as it submils 
to the motives before it. There is no great difficulty in this 
conception so long as we let it alone. It is when we be- 
gin to compare it, to classify it with other conceptions, that 
its obstinacy appears, and this we are liable to mistake for 
intrinsic absurdity, falsity. 

This idea of liberty, connection without necessity — 
the motives lying before the will, not back of it ; per- 
suading, not impelling it — is primitive, and brought by the 
mind to the explanation of a class of facts that require it, 
those of choice and responsibility. The sense of obliga- 
tion, of responsibility, with the subsequent feelings of vir- 
tue and guilt, of approval and condemnation ; the facts of 
government, of reward and punishment, the mind cannot 
understand, or fully accept without the interpretation of 
the idea of liberty ; without making the connection be- 
tween choice and motives, between personal action and the 
circumstances under which it takes place, one of freedom. 
Hence springs the notion of liberty, and the obstinate de- 
fense and maintenance of it by so many, in spite of faulty 
definitions, in spite of this inability to render any explana- 
tion of it satisfactory to the purely scientific mind. 

We are not conscious of liberty. If we were, there 
would be no room for discussion. We no more know the 
exact nature of the connection between the motives and 
the will from experience simply, than we do the connection 
between the volition and subsequent muscular action. In 
view of the accepted fact. of accountability, and the absence 
•of all sensible constraint in motives, the mind predicates of 
the connection liberty — itself supplying the idea, and apply- 
ing it to the phenomena ; exactly as to another class of facts, 
it, in the same independent way, brings the idea of causal in- 
terdependence. The last process is not more valid than the 
first, and is of the same nature and authority with it. In each 



THE REASON. I77 

case the mind proceeds to meet, search and expound the facts 
with ills own independent notion, seen by itself to be appHcable 
to the conditions of the problem. The movement is ex- 
actly that which takes place in the explanation of other ex- 
periences under the notion of space ; and of still others, 
under that of time. The super-sensual nature of the idea 
of liberty must be admitted by all, certainly not less by 
those who deny its intelligibility, and ridicule the assertion 
of its existence, than by those who accept both. As the 
facts which establish its actual presence, as the significant 
feature of volitions, are so closely connected with the will, 
we defer its farther consideration. It seems quite evident, 
that if freedom does exist, it is the expository, the intuitive, 
regulative idea presiding over the facts of choice ; the form 
under which the connection of the will with the causal forces 
about it, is to be conceived, courting it as motives, not press- 
ing upon it as powers. Indeed, philosophers of the empirical 
school usually deny the existence and notion of liberty, at 
least under the form insisted on by Intuitive Philosophy. No 
one can reach, or has striven to reach, the notion of liberty 
through outside experience. It has, when accepted, been 
referred directly to consciousness, or to an intuitive power. 
§ 12. It only remains to speak of the infinite, the last 
of the intuitive ideas, and one that has recently given rise 
to much discussion. It finds application in several direc- 
tions, and perhaps, in the development of the mind, as 
early to space as to any other form of thought. The no- 
tion of space cannot be dwelt on without soon suggesting 
this idea of the infinite. The mind soon sees the inap- 
plicability of any measures, limits, finite relations to 
space, and that, in the very moment of establishment, 
they are swept away by the on-going movement. Space 
lies without as much as within any line we choose to run, 
and the nearer has no advantage over the farther side. The 



178 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

mind under this new necessity laid upon it, with this new 
occasion given to it, grasps the idea of the infinite, of un- 
measured and immeasurable extension. This conception, 
as we regard it, is not the result of mere weariness, is not 
the affirmation of an inability to proceed farther, does not 
spring from repeated and reiterated failure ; it is rather the 
force and insight of the mind that discloses it. It is seen, 
inherently seen, that there is, there can be, no advantage in 
pressing the imagination to its utmost flight, that the condi- 
tions which are now present at this point of space, must recur 
everywhere, no matter what the position attained by us ; 
that one point and one position here or there, that each 
bound longer or shorter, 2x0. facsimiles of every other, and 
therefore contain the solution of the problem as perfectly as 
if it had been raced after with the most wearisome efforts. 
The mind does not then distress itself in search of a limit, 
and fail ; it discovers that there ca7i be no limit ; it pene- 
trates the conditions of the problem, and brings forward 
the notion of a true infinite, which it sets over against the 
finite, which it applies to space, and is at rest, as it knows 
that nothing other or more is to be found elsewhere. 

Thus the mind hits upon the true infinite, not by expe- 
rience, not by exhaustive effort, but by its own penetration 
of relations ; and through this idea it understands another 
of the conditions of its experience, and declines exertion 
which it sees to be necessarily futile. Standing, not mov- 
ing ; by insight, not by baffled effort, it grasps and hence- 
forth uses this notion, so super-sensual in character, so ne- 
cessary for the exposition of the being we possess, the uni- 
verse we inhabit. Space, as infinite, admits of no division. 
No plane can cleave it, no line pierce it. In strict lan- 
guage, it is without parts, at least so far as these imply re- 
mainders. Nothing can be taken from it, nothing added 
to it. The true infinite is subject to no addition, subtrac- 



THE REASON. 



179 



tion, multiplication or division. These are processes 
which find play in the finite alone. 

A second point at which this notion would arise early, 
is the contemplation of time. Here, too, the mind dis- 
covers that the conditions of conception are not in the 
least varied by movement, and that the years which beheld 
the laying of the foundations of the world were no less 
central than those which now are, or those which shall be- 
hold its overthrow. Geologic aeons lie lapped in eternity, 
with no more power of measurement than the point which 
defines pure position on the board before me. Here 
again there is no opportunity to take aught from, or add 
aught to the infinite, to eternity. Indeed we may not 
strike it into two infinite halves by this fleeting moment the 
present, as if it were a node jointing the past to the future. 
A hemisphere is not a sphere, because it meets on one side 
the conditions of the definition. A true infinite must be 
immeasurable in all the" directions in which measurement 
can be applied. A forward or a backward stretch, leaving 
a definite, finite period in the opposite direction, constitutes 
no true infinite ; the lines which pass out from any given 
point are not infinite, they lack an essential feature of the 
infinite, interminableness. They are limited in one direc- 
tion. We are always to distinguish between the indefinitely 
great and the infinite. Mathematics deals with the one, 
and not with the other. A series of figures increased as 
you please, can never express an infinite amount, and 
therefore no infinite can be twice or thrice as great as an- 
other infinite. This borne constantly in mind, and we 
. shall easily dispose of a portion of the perplexities Sir 
William Hamilton has thrown around the subject. 

"A quantity, say a foot, has an infinity of parts. Any 
part of this quantity, say an inch, has also an infinity. 
But one infinity is not larger than another. Therefore an 
inch is equal to a foot. " Neither an inch, nor a foot, nor 



.l8o PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

any other definite quantity, has an infinity of parts — parts, 
that are parts, that have any size, will exhaust any dimen- 
sions short of the infinite, and the quotient still remain 
finite. "A wheel turned with quickest motion ; if a spoke 
be prolonged, it will therefore be moved with a motion 
quicker than the quickest." 

This example and similar examples, are mere riddles 
arising under a play of words. There is no absolutely 
quickest motion, and no motion that is infinitely rapid. 
The perplexity in these cases does not at all spring from 
the notion of the infinite, but from the effort of the imagi- 
nation to transcend its own conditions in a false search by 
a false method after the infinite, or the infinitesimal. The 
imagination must have finite, phenomenal quantities to 
deal with. These, therefore, are always capable both of 
multiplication and division. The fancy may carry on the 
process till it gets weary ; confounded with the results, it may 
mistake its own embarrassments for those of the entire 
mind. It does this only by overlooking and denying the 
true nature of the infinite, and the source whence alone it 
can be rationally looked for. It should not distress the 
mind, because the end of a circle cannot be found by 
chasing round and round it. No more should it, because 
that which has not dimensions cannot be reached by cutting 
down, and at the same time saving, that which has. This 
is striving in the same instant and act to hold on to the 
finite, and to take it away, to keep it and to get beyond it 
It is no more a startling and discouraging fact, that the im- 
agination can make nothing out of nothing, nor give limits 
to that which is without limits, than it is that the body can- 
not be suspended by a spider's thread. Remove the sup- 
port beyond a certain amount in either case, and there 
must be a downfall. 

A third direction in which this notion is applicable, is to 
the attributes of God. God is infinite in power, in wisdom, 



THE REASON. lOI 

in goodness ; that is there are no limits to these attributes 
within their own nature. All that power can do, the power 
of God is able to do. The infinite in space presents itself 
under other forms from the infinite in time, and both of 
these in a way yet different from the infinite in power. 
The nature of power is not altered by the affirmation of its 
infinite extent. This merely removes its limits. It can no 
more do now than before what is not pertinent to its na- 
ture, what must be the product of wisdom or of grace. 
The notion, in its application to God, comes to assume 
those personal relations, that independent perfection of ex- 
istence which we designate by the Infinite, the Absolute. 
God is thus lifted above the reflex action of causes, as well 
as above their antecedent action. Not only is nothing back 
of Him, there is nothing before Him, giving condition 
and law ab extra to His nature. The infinite in this form, 
in these its various applications, we must defend as a posi- 
tive, intuitive idea — indeed, if it be an idea at all, it must 
be an intuitive idea. 

The first objections against the positive, valid character 
of this notion which we shall consider, are those of Sir 
William Hamilton, presented under what he terms. The 
Law of the Conditioned. It is there claimed, that this impres- 
sion, like that of causality, arises from the powerlessness of 
the mind, not from its insight. The line of argument is 
much the same as in the case of causation above treated. 
The following, with omissions, is his presentation of the 
subject. It is found in the Lectures 07i Metaphysics, p. 527. 

* ' We are altogether unable to conceive space as bound- 
ed, as finite ; that is as a whole beyond which there is no 
farther space. * * * On the other hand, we are equally 
powerless to realize in thought the possibility of the oppo- 
site contradictory ; we cannot conceive space as infinite, as 
without limits. You may launch out in thought beyond 
the solar walk, you may transcend in fancy even the uni- 



1 82 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

verse of matter, and rise from sphere to sphere in the re- 
gion of empty space until imagination sinks exhausted ; 
with all this, what have you done ? You have never gone 
beyond the finite. * * Now then, both contradictions 
are equally inconceivable, both are equally incompre- 
hensible ; and yet, though unable to view either as 
possible, we are forced by a higher law — that of excluded 
middle — to admit that one and but one only is necessary. " 
He then treats in the same way, the minimum of space, 
the maximum and minimum of time, and proceeds, "The 
sum therefore of what I have now stated, is : that the con- 
ditioned is that which is alone conceivable, or cogitable, 
the unconditioned that v/hich is inconceivable orincogitable. 
The conditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes 
or poles. " Later he says, ' ' These poles are the absolute 
and the infinite ; the term absolute expressing that which is 
finished or complete ; the term infinite that which cannot 
be terminated or concluded." 

The doctrine of the law of the conditioned is the most 
characteristic feature of the philosophy of Hamilton, and 
is open to obvious and fatal objections. It does not explain 
why the mind is thus embarrassed in its conception of the 
maximum and minimum of space and time, nor why it is 
ever led to vex and torment itself with these impossibilities, 
forsaking the conditioned where traveling is practicable, com- 
fortable and profitable, to scale cloud heights which never 
give foothold to the foolhardy assailant ; nor yet, most strange 
omission ! why of two impossible conceptions equally per- 
plexing, we are called on to accept the one, that of infinite 
'space, infinite time, in place of the other, that of bounded 
space and time. A better theory is able to offer an expla- 
nation of these difficulties. The mind is baffled in a con- 
ception of a maximum and minimum of space, because a 
faculty is set to the task which deals exclusively witii the 
phenomenal, and it is no more curious or surprising that 



THE REASON. 183 

the imagination cannot attain to the infinite, than that these 
limbs of ours cannot mount a sunbeam, and so reach the 
heavens ; or more aptly, than that we cannot see, hear, 
smell the infinite ; since the senses are the analogues of the 
fancy, both covering in a different way the same field. We 
have given the imagination a work to it impossible and 
preposterous. Why is there these excursions of fancy into 
impracticable regions ? Because, overlooking the direct, 
intuitive grasp of the mind, and still haunted by the notion 
of the infinite, we put spurs to the steeds of the imagina- 
tion to see if we may not in this way overtake it. The so- 
ber, plodding judgment turns aside from the thinkable to 
the unthinkable, in hunt of a ghostly conception which is 
real enough to bewilder the eye with strange appearances, 
but too unsubstantial to be grasped and handled in physic- 
al fashion. To pursue spirits or flee from spirits on horse- 
back is of little avail, though with man's belief in the spi- 
ritual world, the nature of the pursuit and its philosophy 
are sufficiently plain to the quiet looker-on. 

A third, most fatal failure of this theory, is to explain why 
we uniformly and certainly accept infinite space which has 
no advantage to the mind over the supposition of finite space. 
This embarrassment at once disappears, if we suppose the 
notion a positive one, provided by the mind to be placed in 
explanation and comprehension over against the finite. 
The theory of Hamilton succeeds in eliciting the perplexities 
of the subject, but brings to them no solution. 

But it will be said, the intuitive theory has its own and 
yet more fatal difficulties. How can the infinite be a pos- 
itive idea ? Very easily if we assign it to the right faculty, 
and make it simple and ultimate ; as easily and intelligibly 
as red is red, or sweet, sweet. In neither case can we go 
beyond the ultimate fact, and we have fortunately learned 
in the more familiar instance to give up the eff"ort. This 
objection may come in the form of a second theory of the in- 



184 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

finite, to wit that the notion is a negative not a positive one, 
involving a denial merely and not an affirmation. That 
the word is negative in form is a fact of no significance ; so 
are inhuman and indecent If the word infinite simply set 
forth the fact of non-existence, we should at once lay aside 
the article, and no longer speak of the infinite, any more 
than of the nothing. It is because it stands over against the 
finite, embracing the sum of possibilities and powers not 
expressed or measured therein, that we call it the infinite. 
If its negative form contained the true secret of the word, it 
would occasion no more perplexity, would contain no more 
profound depths, than does the finite. Nothing is as intel- 
ligible as something, the termination as the extension of 
physical objects, and if the mind did accept the word as a 
mere denial of anything more, it would accept it content- 
edly, without this endless bother and perplexity, this groping 
on for something not yet reached. 

It is said, in proof of this negative character of the notion, 
that it is inconceivable. This we grant, and have given the 
reason why it is inconceivable. It is not an object for the 
imagination. No more is the notion of causation, nor of 
liberty, nor of right, nor of beauty. Nothing which is not 
phenomenal, nor under the immediate form which pheno- 
mena are assuming, is a subject for the imagination. It is 
further said. The infinite is not thinkable. "To think is 
to condition " is to throw into finite relations, is to destroy 
the notion of the infinite. The same answer as that already 
made is still open. The list of our faculties is not exhaust- 
ed when we have marked off" the imagination and the judg- 
ment. It is possible that the reason was given to us for 
this very end, to reach ideas not otherwise present to the 
mind. We hardly see why it should be present, or thought 
to be present, to furnish thinkable and conceivable objects, 
that is, objects arrived at by other faculties. 

In what sense, however, is it true that the infinite is not 



THE REASON. 



185 



thinkable ? It is trae in this sense only, that it cannot be 
approached by explanations grounded on resemblances, that 
it cannot be made the subject of judgments, at least, of those 
which limit it under finite analogies, and this is an important 
restriction so far as the statements are regarded as precise 
and exhaustive. And why should we expect it to be? Do 
we not antecedently see and say, that this process must be 
destructive to the very nature of the notion ? Why then 
proceed to allege the fact against it ? We can do this ra- 
tionally only by involving the assertion, that the judg- 
ment and imagination are our sole final, conclusive facul- 
ties of knowledge ; and this begs the question at issue. To 
reject the reason because it does not do the very superfluous 
work of giving an idea capable, by likeness and relation, of 
falling into the list of previous ideas, is to misunderstand 
the object of the faculty, or to assume that its existence is 
impossible. We might as well object to the validity of our 
knowledge of an odor, because it is not thinkable, or, for- 
sooth, conceivable under color or sound. In this sense, 
then, we admit the infinite is not thinkable ; but all think- 
ing is not under limitations and conditions. Sometimes it 
is quite the reverse. To say that God is infinite is to deny 
conditions of Him. To say that The Infinite is, that He 
is free, that He is holy, is not to condition, to limit God, 
rather the reverse. The fact that we cannot go farther, and 
conceive the acts in and by which His liberty and holiness 
express themselves except under a measured, a finite form, 
does not destroy the meaning or significance of the antece- 
dent assertion. It merely presents another case of a fami- 
liar difficulty, that of getting from one province of know- 
ledge to another. Different tracts of cognition do not lie 
together, like the provinces of one empire, the transition 
one of movement only. 

Here springs up another modification of this theory, 
that of Herbert Spencer. He regards the notion of the in- 



1 86 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

finite as of an illusory character, shown by the very fact 
that every effort to give proportion and definiteness to it, 
baffles us, and results in driving it into more remote re- 
gions. We admit the perplexity which a portion of our 
faculties, whose action we arg most familiar with, and from 
which we are accustomed to receive most of our conclusions, 
experience in handling, or rather in striving to handle, the 
infinite. This fact presents to us no difficulty ; we see the 
reason why these faculties are not adequate to the labor laid 
upon them. Indeed, our belief in the infinite would be 
overthrown by a successful presentation of it, either by the 
imagination, or by the judgment under its own forms, and 
is established by this very failure on their part. The objec- 
tion of our adversary is proof with us. 

On the other hand, the opposite view, that the action is 
wholly illusory, is involved in difliculties that it cannot 
evade. How can Spencer insist that any presentation of the 
infinite is not adequate, when he has no notion of what the 
infinite is ? How can a notion be shown to be illusory, 
except by a growing intuition ? How can Hamilton re- 
quire us to accept by faith that which is unintelligible, ab- 
solutely and completely so. Here are real contradictions. 
There can be no general denial of the applicability of any 
and all conceptions of the infinite, without postulating 
thereby some notions of the infinite with which these are 
compared, and, as falling short, are pronounced wanting. 
One notion of an utterly unknown thing, is as good and as 
adequate as another. Neither can faith make that an ob- 
ject of belief, which is utterly unknown to the mind. The 
faith of Hamilton, and the vanishing conception of Spen- 
cer, are both self-contradictory, as being alone able to arise 
under the furtive, but real light of an idea present and rul- 
ing in the mind. No false conception of the Deity can be 
set aside, except by one which is better, or is deemed bet- 
ter; no faith can be expressed except toward a Being 



I 



THE REASON. 1 87 

thought to be. These perplexities find no removal. To 
escape, therefore, difficulties whose reason is forthcoming by 
difiiculties that find no solution, is to forsake the light 
for darkness, is to employ exposition with a loss of ex- 
pository power. 

Nor are formulae of thought which are inadequate, in a 
limited sense false, unservicable, if their deficiencies are 
clearly seen by the mind that uses them. The expressions 
infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite goodness, contain 
as statements two things : the qualities indicated by the 
nouns, power, wisdom, goodness ; and their unlimited de- 
gree, pointed out by the adjective infinite. Our ideas of the 
first may gain in precision and clearness without affecting 
the applicability of the adjective which sweeps away their 
limits. We may inquire experimentally into the nature 
and forms of power, and yet well understand that these 
precise manifestations are swallowed up in, included un- 
der, infinite power. We thus use in mathematics the first 
term of an infinite series to define and represent the remain- 
der ; or we make the rule for the area of an inscribed poly- 
gon, that of the enclosing circle, on the ground of the 
constant approximation of the one surface to the other, 
with each increase of the number of sides. Yet the one 
never absolutely conforms to the other. The moral for- 
mula for the infinite is. This and more. The noun gives 
that which is to be expanded, the adjective, the law of its 
expansion. The this of the formula gives room for inquiry 
and growth, the more cuts us off" from regarding a part as 
the whole. This is a movement of thought practically 
simple and safe ; no more inexplicable, no more dangerous 
than the use of suppositions in mathematics which reach 
toward the exact truth without finally covering it, which put 
one thing for another on the ground of constant approxi- 
mation. Conceptions are habitually employed in mathe- 
matics which are inconceivable. We regard circles as per- 



100 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

feet, yet the description of a perfect circle is to the imagi 
nation an impossible task, for the same reason that it is to 
the senses. Start with a describing point. If it move for 
the least interval in a straight line, so far the line is not 
curved ? if it begins to bend before it has traced the least 
portion of a line, it has nothing from which to bend or 
curve. It must bend and curve at once, and an image of 
this the fancy cannot form. Even a point, in order that 
progress may be made by passing through it, must have 
some breadth, and this breadth, if it is to give an initiatory 
direction from which the curve is to depart, must be straight. 
In analytic conception we resolve the descriptive process into 
motion and departure, or bending from that motion ; we can- 
not conceive these two to be absolutely and constantly syn- 
chronous, yet without this the circle is imperfect. The imagi- 
nation follows after the hand and eye, and as these are not 
exact, neither is it. 

§ 13. Having presented the eleven intuitive ideas which 
constitute the mind's intellectual furniture, and also the 
grounds of proof in each case, we propose further to 
draw attention to some considerations which belong to all 
of them, establishing their character, and separating them 
from generalizations. Necessity and universality have been 
fixed on as the criteria of these notions. The two tests are 
liable to be mistaken for one, and are so under a certain 
rendering of them. To distinguish these from each other, 
we should understand by necessity, that immediateness and 
certainty of conviction which attaches in all minds to truths 
purely dependent on intuitive ideas. Thus there are in 
'the definitions and axioms of Geometr}', many secondary 
intuitions, referable to the primary intuition, space. From 
these there spring convictions and proofs, in the quickness 
and certainty with which the mind receives them, wholly 
unlike those dependent on experience. That two straight 
lines, lying in the same plane, and for a space equally dis- 



THE REASON. 1 89 

tant, will remain so through their entire length, is an asser- 
tion which the mind accepts at once, as a necessary truth. 
Nothing, probably, but the exigencies of a theory, would 
ever lead one, with Mill, to strive to trace a conviction like 
this to experience. Certain it is, that no mathematician 
ever thought of establishing it by induction. Experimental 
truth never imparts such immediate and perfect belief Of 
a like nature is the instant and unavoidable assurance that 
the changes taking place before us have a cause. When- 
ever a statement is solely dependent on a regulative idea, 
it becomes a necessary or demonstrative truth. 

Universality, remaining a separate criterion, may now re- 
fer to the constant presence of one or other of these ideas in 
every judgment; to the fact of the impossibility of thought, 
distinct, declared thought, in any mind without them. 
These universal antecedents of thought cannot be furnished 
by thought itself Thought cannot supply its own condi- 
tions. The universality of their presence in each act of 
mind and in all minds becomes thus a proof of their super- 
sensual nature. It seems to us, however, that it is a care- 
ful analysis of the processes and growth of thought, that is 
to establish each idea by itself; to lay open its transcenden- 
tal character, as in the case of the infinite and liberty, or its 
necessary, antecedent presence to a certain class of judg- 
ments, as right to ethical judgments, consciousness to the 
apprehension of mental facts. The three criteria, the ne- 
cessity of the involved truths, the universal presence of one 
or more of those notions in all judgments, the transcenden- 
tal nature of the conceptions themselves, are not applicable 
all of them with equal clearness to each of the eleven ideas, 
and must be applied and sustained by a distinct analysis of 
the mental phenomena involved. 

§ 14. There is another very vital point in this discussion; 
whether these ideas are to be regarded as purely subjective 
as mere mental forms brought to the object-matter of thought 



190 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

or whether they pertain as external, necessary forms to that 
matter itself, thus possessing a complete independent being. 
The first belief is that of certain phases of idealism, and is 
as contradictory to the universal opinions of men as any 
philosophy well can be. We do not say, that it is contra- 
dictory to consciousness, for it is not, but that it sets aside 
as wholly invalid, and without foundation, the universal con- 
victions of men, thereby casting great improbability on its 
own conclusions. 

Cause and effect seem to be the notion by which we 
more especially establish the existence of the external world. 
Not to accept as just and safe the inferences to which this 
notion of the mind lead us, is to deny the integrity of our 
faculties, and to introduce a fatal scepticism to which no 
after limits can be set. It is a fundamental principle of 
sound philosophy, that the integrity of no faculty can be de- 
nied, nor its guarded, normal action be set aside. If, 
therefore, we recognize the universal presence of the notion 
of cause and effect, we have no more right to treat it as il- 
lusory, than we have thus to regard vision or memory. 
Spencer justly says, ' ' That Space and Time are ' forms 
of sensibilities,' or 'subjective conditions of thought,' that 
have no objective basis, is a belief as repugnant to common 
sense as any proposition that can be found. " This conclu- 
sion is reached in philosophy by rejecting without reason 
an action of mind, a faculty universally present. We do 
not, indeed, know the objective world in perception, since 
consciousness discloses — is a condition of — mental phenom- 
ena only, and these are not identical with the physical phe- 
nomena which they represent or accompany ; but we do 
know it inferentially under causation. The action of the 
mind herein, as clear and constant and universal as any, 
implies a power or faculty whose office it is to make these 
disclosures. 

It may be said, tliat this view is as open as the opposite 



THE REASON. I9I 

to the criticism of disregarding the general conviction, since 
fjiis is not merely that we know, but that we actually see 
and feel, the outside world. The cases presented by the 
two theories are very diverse. The one rejects entirely con- 
clusions universally accepted ; the other, in careful analy- 
sis of a complex operation, refers them to an obscure ele- 
ment, easily and more frequently overlooked. The popu- 
lar mind regards sight, touch, as simple operations, and so 
ascribes to them our knowledge of the external world. It 
is deficient in analysis, not erroneous in its reference. 
Philosophy resolves sensation into distinct operations, and 
assigns to one of these, that of causal inference, the imme- ^ 
diate proof of outside existence. It is to be claimed that the 
general action of the common mind should be regarded as 
normal ; it is not to be claimed, that analysis may not go 
farther than ordinary concrete judgments. 

Let us trace a little the entrance and ground of this con- 
viction of the independent existence of things about us. 
The mind soon learns to distinguish between sensations 
and thoughts, between phenomena which come and go at 
its own bidding, and those which are entirely independent 
of its will. It necessarily assigns the one a different source 
or cause from the other. As sensations in different organs 
are found to be connected with the same object, this fact, 
in an additional and confirmatory way, establishes, for the 
mind, its external and independent existence. Touch and 
sight aid each other in fixing and locating the source of 
the impressions in each sense. The sensations and percep- 
tions are found to come and go together, and are therefore 
inferred to spring from a common cause, external alike to 
each organ. The location of the senses themselves, the 
gradual apprehension of the objects, distances, and rela- 
tions of the external world, are processes of which we shall 
have occasion to speak more fully. It is sufficient for our 
present purpos t to observe, that under the notion of cause 



192 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

and effect, sensations and perceptions are distinguished 
from other facts of mind as having an independent origin ; 
that these external causes are slowly fixed on by repeated ex- 
periences, entering through a variety of organs, and that as a 
result of this normal movement of mind, men do everywhere 
arrive at, and believe in an external world, the same to them 
all. The cause is as real as the eifect, and to accept a sen- 
sation as actual, is virtually to accept for it an independent 
cause, and under the instruction of protracted experience, 
an external cause, external not merely to the mind, but 
usually to the body also. This movement is spontaneous 
and universal, and cannot be invalidated without an 
overthrow of the credibility of a portion of our Ac- 
uities. 

Observe also that the result is the same for all ; men 
move in ofie external world. One set of objects, one rela- 
tion of objects belong to them all, and they harmonize their 
action by the validity of this their common experience. 
Make the world subjective to each individual, and you vir- 
tually deny for each the existence of all others. The pre- 
posterous conclusions of pure idealism could only be made 
to rest on the most undeniable proof; nor on that, for the 
effect even then would be rather of general confusion, of 
speculations wholly at war with practical conclusions ; of 
the discord of knowledge, than of sound, settled, consis- 
tent belief 

A similar line of proof has been carefully applied by Dr. 
Hickok to the notions of time and space. The reality of 
space has been shown to be the only condition in w-hich 
the phenomena of the physical world can be the same for 
us all, included in "one whole of all space," open to 
common knowledge and common use. Moreover we dis- 
tinguish imaginary space — space which the fancy furnishes 
as a setting for its pictures, from real space. The space of 
the senses and that of the imagination are entirely different, 



THE REASON. 193 

showing that space as a form of thought is at once distin- 
guishable by us from space, an external form for real 
being. 

§ 15. The eleven ideas now presented are capable of be- 
ing grouped in various ways. Space and consciousness 
may be regarded as expressing the two diverse and comple- 
mentary fields in which respectively all phenomena, pheno- 
mena of matter and mind, occur. The higher plane has 
ideas peculiar to itself, beauty, liberty, right. The lower 
plane shares its ideas with the higher. The only ideas pe- 
culiar to physical events are space, and cause and effect. 
The infinite, on the other hand, is an idea that keeps aloof 
from, the phenomenal, comes in only to explain and com- 
prehend the finite, and, in its personal form, to give the in- 
vestigations of the mind a final goal, — one from which they 
may start, and to which they may return. 

The six ideas that pertain to matter, fall into couplets, 
existence and resemblance, space and number, time and 
cause. Existence finds its chief significance in its resem- 
blances ; space, in its numerical relations ; time, in the 
causal sequence of events. The first couplet gives us the 
facts of being, and their character ; the second, the most 
abstract relations of things in co-existence ; the third, their 
relations in sequence. By them collectively we are able to 
determine that a thing is, what it is, where and when it is, 
and its relations to the objects about it, thus completing the 
circle of inquiry. Cause expresses the law of evolution in 
the physical world ; liberty, that of the spiritual world. 
Forces are installed in distinct measure and form in space, 
their initiation is an act of mind. Mind antedates matter, 
matter is the product of mind. Liberty in actual choice 
forecloses liberty, and henceforward realized power moves 
with an imparted, necessary impulse to its goal. 



194 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

CHAPTER V. 

The Dynamics of the Intellect. 

§ I. We are to speak in this chapter of the growth and 
interaction of the intellectual powers, of the dynamic or ac- 
tive states of the mind. The Intuitive Philosophy has been 
censured, not without reason, by the Sensualistic School for 
contemplating the mind only in its maturity, with no suffi- 
cient allowance for the results of previous conditions upon 
it, — for the effects of growth. This criticism we so far re- 
spect as to find a conspicuous place for truths which have 
been chiefly urged by such men as Spencer and Bain, al- 
ways shaping them, however, to a new position and pur- 
pose. We are not prepared to admit any hereditary influ- 
ences which vary the fundamental conditions of the prob- 
lem of our intellectual nature. The varieties of character, 
the growth of national and race distinctions, find explana- 
tion here ; but no sufficient proof has yet been given to es- 
tabKsh, or even to render probable, the transformation of spe- 
cies by the accumulated changes of descent, especially in 
those cases of decided ditference to which the human family 
belongs. We must still regard each normal individual as 
a full type of the race in its essential features, nor are we 
ready to look upon any one of these faculties as the pro- 
duct of external conditions, the sum of growing, hereditary 
tendencies. 

When, on the other hand, we contrast the infant with the 
mature man, it must, we think, be admitted, that the com- 
plete activity of the latter, is veiy diff'erent from the tenta- 
tive, experimental, partial movement of the former. It is 
to this development of intellectual power that we first di- 
rect attention. The first distinct, mental phenomena are 



1 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 1 95 

doubtless those of sensation, are physical feelings. These 
should be conceived as perfectly pure, that is as simple 
states or activities of mind — for our present purposes 
there is no difference between a state and an activity of 
mind: both are activities. These first sensations may be of 
one kind or of another, but are more likely to enter through 
the general, sensational system than through a specific 
sense, to be sensations of pain, local or pervasive, demand- 
ing relief, and rising with acute, jagged certainty into the 
light of consciousness. It matters not what are the first 
sensations, since it is a changing series of sensations that 
invites attention. These are each simple, single, mental 
states known in the very fact of their existence as sensibili- 
ties. Separately, they are capable of no analysis, no divi- 
sion whatever. A pain, a taste are as individual as any ob- 
jects of contemplation can be. To suppose these, in the 
case of special sensations, to reveal directly an external ob- 
ject, would be to suppose that the phenomena of matter be- 
come the phenomena of mind, and are known directly as 
such. We can only be conscious of a mental state, and if 
we are not conscious of external objects or events, then we do 
not directly know them. Than such a supposition nothing 
can be more destructive of the fundamental distinction be- 
tween the two fields, the physical and the mental. By 
means of it we shall logically travel back to that pure ideal- 
ism which forced us, in defence, to make it. If, in reach- 
ing the external world, we break down the division between 
the two, we are, with our captured facts, thrown back at 
once on the enlarged domain of mind. We have seen 
matter not as matter, but as productive of events, percep- 
tions within the circle of consciousness, that is within the 
mind itself Thus the mind knows matter immediately, and 
that too in its own acts. Then the same phenomena are 
at once phenomena of matter and of mind. 

We can only allow, then, that sensations directly in con- 



196 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

sciousness disclose themselves ; all beyond this is inferen. 
tial. At this stage of growth, possessed of sensations merely, 
the infant is as ignorant of his own physical organs, as of 
the world about him. He absolutely knows nothing save 
the fleeting, varying pains and pleasures that flit through 
that unlocated region called consciousness, itself more of- 
ten hidden under the cloud of dreams than open to the new 
light of waking perceptions. A tongue, a hand, an eye, 
a foot, are wholly beyond the scope of his knowledge ; 
nothing physical, external to consciousness, is as yet recog- 
nized. In adult years we so instantly locate each sensation, 
that it seems to us that it itself declares its position. We 
are doubtless to conceive of the mind as using the entire 
body, as making it directly and immediately instrumental 
in reaching and influencing the external world. The 
brain is the chief seat or centre of power, but is no more 
the mind, is no more a condition of its activity than the 
nervous system generally, spreading through and through 
the body, and perfectly possessing it. But this instrument 
of the mind is not directly known to it. It uses it, and 
controls it unconsciously, in the dark, not in the light. Its 
shape, form, and members even, are all to be learned by 
experience. We may hesitate at first to admit this, but a 
little thought will compel the concession. 

If the mind in sensation itself knows and locates the in- 
struments of those sensations, then ought the mind to 
know its internal organs as well as its external ones. These 
are often independent sources of pain, and in the nervous 
system are as indispensable means to perception as the 
special senses ; yet the existence of the stomach, the brain, 
the liver, the interior formation of the eye, the ear, the ner- 
vous fibres and their ramifications, have all to be learned, 
must all be made objects of examination, and declare 
nothing to us directly of their own existence. These do 
not diff"er as regards our original knowledge of them, from 



IHE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 197 

the tongue, the finger-ends, except in the fact that we ne- 
cessarily learn the existence and form of the one set of or- 
gans much earlier than we do of the other. 

That the special senses do not directly declare locality 
and form, is further seen in an analysis of their action. 
The ear, and the eye, though more frequently indicating 
instantly the directions and relations of objects, merging, 
obscuring the judgments of the mind by their rapidity in 
the sensations which they accompany, are often so slow and 
uncertain in their decisions as to make the presence of their 
reflective processes conspicuous. We frequently have oc- 
casion to listen attentively in order to judge of the character 
and distance and nature of an unfamiliar sound. An 
object seen across the water deceives us, is farther off than 
we think it to be. Our estimates of the height of a cloud 
are very uncertain ; or of the size of unfamiliar objects, 
especially when our ordinary standards of measurement are 
taken from us, and the proportions, as of a cathedral, are 
grander than those to which we are accustomed. The in- 
complete state in which the work still remains, here reveals 
the fact, that size, form, direction, are to the eye solely 
matters of judgment. That the eye and the ear do not di- 
rectly disclose themselves is evident. One whose eyes were 
couched late in life, was at first under the impression that 
visible objects were directly in contact with the eye, inter- 
preting the action of this sense by that of touch with 
which he was familiar. He was utterly unable to dispense 
in vision with the training of experience, and, by constantly 
comparing the results of the two senses of sight and touch, 
was at length enabled to use the first independently. 

Touch is the sense whose localizing power is regarded as 
the most immediate, while its acquisition of this facility is 
most concealed from us by remoteness of time. This 
sense can, by special cultivation, when other senses are 
wanting, be made so much more perfect than it now is. 



198 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

be so filled and rounded out with instantaneous judgments^ 
as to have but a slight resemblance to its former self. The 
raised letters of the blind are distinguished by most persons 
slowly, and with the utmost difficulty, while the trained 
touch glides rapidly along them, almost as the visual nerve 
moves over the printed page. The blind in some instances 
acquire a power and precision of touch inexplicable to us, 
and are enabled to carry on employments, like engineering 
and warfare, from which we should regard them as entirely 
excluded. Ziska was among the most distinguished of 
generals. When the entire mind is directed to this avenue 
of communication with the external world, it brings it by 
included judgments to an unthought-of perfection, and 
widens it into a wonderful inlet of information. 

The dependence of this sense, in common with others, on 
experience for its localizing power, is also seen in the fact, 
that on the finger-ends, where it exists most perfectly and in 
most constant use, we distinguish much more completely 
and accurately than on other parts of the body. A 
considerable space must intervene between two points ap- 
plied simultaneously to the person elsewhere, before we can 
discern them as two ; they may approach very closely, and 
yet be separated in sensation by the fingers. 

The eye is sometimes deceived. The fans of a wind- 
mill seem to revolve in a direction opposite to the real one. 
We explain this, as an error of the accompanying judg- 
ments, induced by an unfavorable position. The same 
form of error occasionally occurs in touch. The fingers 
being crossed, and the hand placed behind its possessor, he 
is often not able to decide which one has been touched. 
The ordinar}' accuracy of judgment is lost on account of 
the unusual conditions under which it is exercised. The 
vast majority, then, of our localizing power being mani- 
festly of an acquired and experimental character, we are 
inductively led to the conclusion, that all of it is of this 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT, 1 99 

nature ; and the more so when we find, that the most stead- 
fest and stubborn conclusions are occasionally at fault, 
when formed under changed conditions of judgment. The 
patient whose limb was to be removed, returning to a state 
of consciousness, can only determine by observation, 
whether it has been amputated. Indeed his sensations 
may often lead him, through the accustomed reference of 
pain to the accustomed quarters, to suppose the limb in 
its place, and this though weeks may have elapsed since it 
was lopped from the body. 

We return to the consideration of our first intellectual 
state, the flow of simple, subjective, unlocalized sensations. 

Be it at once observed, that this is the form in which they 
present themselves to us, not at all that in which they are 
contemplated by the nascent spirit. Quite the reverse is 
its method of contemplation, so far as contemplation can 
be predicated of a state so controllingly sensational. The 
limited number of sensations are at first distinguished as 
pleasurable and painful, and each class is accompanied by 
more or less of spontaneous, automatic, muscular effort, 
gradually changing into voluntary efi"ort, fitted to retain the 
enjoyment or escape the pain. The pleasures of touch and 
taste are especially concentrated on the tongue, and the in- 
fant spontaneously seeks the breast in gratification of its sensi- 
bilities. Later, the feeling awakens in the hands, and the 
child is not at ease till these are laid on the mother. In these 
earliest, tangible sources of pleasure, secured and main- 
tained by muscular eff"ort, the infant rests ; wanting these it 
worries, and moves inquiringly till they are regained. 
Later, other forms of sensation succeed ; the hand grasps 
more definitely, and seeks a greater variety of objects ; the 
ear is cheered by the voice of the parent ; the eye is de- 
lighted with the brightness of the lamp-light, or with the 
sun-light. In these last cases, it is evidently more as sen^ 
sations than as perceptions, more as organic impressions^ 



200 PiUNCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

than as distinct cognitions, that the new objects find ad- 
mission and confer pleasure. Slowly the eye learns to sep- 
arate objects just at hand, and distinctly discern them, 
though possessed of no peculiar brilliancy. It recognizes 
he face of the mother, and at length follows, even into the 
distance, her retreating form. Still, its range, for a consi- 
derable period, seems limited, scarcely passing the verge of 
the cradle. Later, the ear learns to direct the eye, and the 
distant voice wins the attention of both organs. The pro- 
cess of acquisition goes on till a definite mastery of each 
member is secured ; its peculiar impressions discriminated, 
and the visible world unfolded and rolled out in its mar- 
vellous complexity of forms and relations. Most busy and 
fruitful are these early years of childhood. Scarcely again 
do we learn so many and so perfect lessons in so brief a 
period. What the painter by slow analysis is able to re- 
verse, presenting spaces, directions, distances, forms, on a 
plain surface of varying colors ; rendering the landscape, 
with an area of many square miles, on a canvas of scarcely 
more square inches ; the child of a few years has learned 
to do with far more perfection, opening up and out the 
simple vignette of the retina, till it fills in every part the 
magnificent stretches before and about us. 

This movement, from the beginning, takes place under 
an objective form. The sensation is not enjoyed subjective- 
ly, dreamily ; but objectively, really. The pleasures are 
attached at once to an object and a state ; thus also the 
pains. The spontaneous, muscular effort with which they 
are connected, facilitate this external form of experience, by 
attaching enjoyment to objects independent of the senses 
themselves, to things momentarily lost and momentarily re- 
gained. Distinct, muscular exertion aids in distinguishing 
different states, in marking their attainment, maintenance, 
and loss. 

The objective character of early experience is also height- 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 20I 

ened by the degree in which it is composed of sensations as 
opposed to perceptions, and later, of external, as contrasted 
with reflective pleasures. Language presents the mind as 
especially passive, receptive in feeling ; and attributes the 
efficiency, the activity to the exterior occasion of the emo- 
tions. This we observe also in uncultivated, immature 
persons. Their attention is particularly directed to the ob- 
jects and sources of pleasure. Their appetites and passions 
lead them inevitably to this objective life, to this hanging 
upon the external conditions of pleasure, this clinging to 
the bosom of nature. The notion of cause and effect — its 
own momentary enjoyments the effect — attaches the mind, 
as yet little more than a bundle of sensations, strongly and 
at once to the external world. Slowly it unfolds the facts 
of this world, the avenues and dependencies of its own 
pleasures, its senses and the things which minister to them. 
The internal rather than the external is overlooked. The 
senses are separated from the objects which affect them, but 
the attention of the mind is much later referred to itself, as 
truly subjective to them all. 

If we were to neglect the objective character of experience 
from the outset ; if we should suppose the mind for a time 
floating from sensation to sensation on the inner, tidal 
movement of its own phenomena, we should find increas- 
ing difficulty in making the transition, and in justifying it 
when we had made it. We are rather to regard the mind 
as at once borne outward toward the sources of its enjoy- 
ments, and as realizing these in and by their causes. We 
should likewise observe the great aid which muscular effort 
gives in interpreting and locating sensations. By this means 
the child at first automatically, later voluntarily, renews and 
discontinues its physical impressions, till the mind has ma- 
tured its knowledge of them, their diversities and condi- 
tions. The relations of space are especially dependent on 
movement for their determination. The eye and the hand 



203 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

work with each other in exploring surrounding bodies and 
intervening spaces, while a series of sensations record the 
motions of the arms and fingers. By movement we repeat 
at pleasure the problems offered by extension, and secure 
ever varying conditions for their solution. 

In this growth of the mind into the possession and 
handling of its instruments, into the rudiments of experi- 
mental knowledge, the appropriate, regulative ideas are 
present doing their work, though of course they are unre- 
cognized by the mind, as is the fact of sensation itself in 
the first feelings, or the fact of judgment in the early per- 
ceptions of likeness. It is the substance of experience, not 
its forms, the facts of experience, not its conditions, that 
occupy the attention. Experience is not for this reason 
destitute of form, or without conditions. The first when 
and where, though as yet unanalyzed, involve time and 
space, as certainly as the last. 

Regulative ideas are not first present as objects of atten- 
tion, of distinct recognition, but as unthought-of principles 
which guide our consideration and apprehension of the 
phenomena before us. They may sooner or later, or not 
at all, be analyzed out as distinct elements of thought, 
though as unconscious ingredients they are, in some one 
or other of their forms, present from the very beginning. 
It is not till the class of phenomena to which it pertains are 
brought forward, enter into the experience, and call forth 
the attention and judgment, that any one of these ideas, as 
that of beauty, of liberty, or of right, will find develop- 
ment and application. That the notion of beauty remains 
so obscure, 'so confounded with other qualities to the mass 
of men, is no reflection on the Intuitive Philosophy. It is 
not asserted, that regulative ideas are from the beginning 
present in complete power, but when a fitting experience is 
here to evoke them. 

§ 2. The mind, once in possession and use of its facul- 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 203 

ties ; its perceptions and sensations made complete and in- 
stant in their action by the absorption of the needed judg- 
ments ; the intuitive notions, all present aiding to expand, 
locate, relate, and expound the several objects and events 
of experience, and give form and rational coherence to 
thought, is ready for the acquisition of what is more com- 
monly known as knowledge. This mastery of the condi- 
tions is so early, so spontaneous, so inevitable, that we 
more frequently overlook it altogether, and regard the en- 
tire complex result as immediate and direct. For the 
same reason we hardly expend a thought on the ways in 
which spoken language is secured by the child, and look 
upon education as commencing with the learning of the 
letters — the written alphabet. Yet the first acquisition, 
though imitative and spontaneous, involves a more funda- 
mental training, penetrates deeper into the physical powers 
than the second. 

The intellect once in possession of itself, finds chief oc- 
casion to expand its knowledge under the notion of resem- 
blance. It is through this that it traces and interprets the 
lines of force, the streams of causation ; and by these that 
it gains power, the means of gratification. Yet we cannot 
accept the statement, that all judgments can be analyzed 
into resemblance, into agreement and disagreement ; and 
yet more do we not assent to the assertion, that these resem- 
blances are sought for their own sake. Each regulative 
idea furnishes the ground of a distinct predication, not to 
be resolved in its very essence by the most subtle analysis 
into any other. Moreover, resemblances are of value, and 
. only of value, as they are the indices of agreeing forces, as 
they are the surface marks which disclose the concealed 
lines of connection between objects and events. 

Power is the fundamental element of knowledge, that 
which makes its search pleasant, and its acquisition profit- 
able. The desire for knowledge which gives no power, 



204 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

which Stands in no connections, is, like avarice, the morbid 
play of a just impulse. To know the exact number of 
leaves on a tree, their position and form, the precise way 
in which some ancient but insignificant event happened, 
the very words in which some second-rate poet expressed 
himself, is to know to no good purpose, is to have the 
semblance, not the substance of wisdom, the shell, not the 
kernel of truth. Resemblances which are accidental, 
which betray no relationship, as the size and form of a 
boy's marble, when compared with the pebbles on the 
beach, or the agreement of sounds and signs in unrelated 
languages, have no interest, and subserve none of the pur- 
poses of knowledge. A resemblance which is a mere re- 
semblance, which casts no light on the past, and gives no 
clue to the future, which discloses none of the forces at 
work in the world, is unfruitful, and the knowledge of it 
of no value. That which makes the search after agree- 
ments so unremitting are the axioms of causation : That 
like causes are followed by like effects, and That like effects 
indicate like causes. These transform a knowledge of real, 
central agreements into power, put us in connection with 
the plan of the world, enable us to bring new forces into 
it, and take new and coveted effects from it. 

Uncultivated minds, so far as they pursue knowledge at 
all, do it under this form ; an observation of resemblances 
with reference to an ulterior possession and control of 
causes. The savage distinguishes between the different 
kinds of timber, because he expects the same external in- 
dications to remain the accompaniments and marks of cer- 
tain interior qualities of strength, weight, elasticity. A 
bow of the same material he believes will exhibit the same 
good points with which he is familiar; a spear of like wood 
possesses like pliancy and toughness. Language comes in 
to mark and hold together for the mind these agreeing 
things, by which the implements of man, and his succes- 
sive wants are to be supplied. 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 205 

Science, the advanced and complete movement of 
thought, is but a more rigid separation of like from like, a 
more careful selection of central qualities, a complete and 
interdependent classification of objects, both that the re- 
sources of the globe, in all its ministration to human life, 
may be laid open, and also, that the concealed chart of laws, 
according to which the events of the present come pour- • 
ing down from the past, and go forth to occupy the future, 
may be disclosed. While our experience, then, finds its 
first efforts directed to resemblances, these lead to profound- 
er inquiries into causes, those links of force which length- 
wise and laterally bind together the physical events of the 
world. 

At length the purely objective character of knowledge 
passes somewhat away. The mind gives heed to the agent 
as well as to the instrument. Having acquired power, it 
learns to value itself, the possessor of that power. With 
more pure reflection and subjective attention, it inquires 
into its own faculties, and the laws of their control. Now 
come forward new intuitive ideas, beauty, liberty, right, 
disjoining philosophy from science, and setting the first over 
against the second as independent of it, and complementary 
to it. This change and jar of transition constitute the 
great danger attendant on the acquisition of this form of 
knowledge. The forces and notions of the one field are 
intruded into the other, and those who suppose themselves 
the most patient of inductive philosophers are really vision- 
ary theorists, adopting a disguised, a priori method ;. since 
they bring to a nev/ department methods and conceptions 
alien to it, and refuse, vacating the mind of prejudice, to 
examine and classify these fresh phenomena according to 
their inherent characteristics, directly observed. There is thus 
more or less of vibration between the two fields. Now the 
philosophical, now the scientific, conceptions rule the in- 
quiring mind, and the present, passionate, physical re- 



206 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

searches and methods of thought are sure to be followed by a 
recoil against forms of inquiry so partial, so one-sideed, so 
unscrupulous in their application. The deductive method 
was never more arbitrarily applied to science, with less cor- 
Tection from experience, than is the inductive method now 
to philosophy, bringing with it the forms and forces of 
physics. Induction transferred from one field to another, 
without fresh starting points and new limitations, is really 
disguised and unsafe deduction. Knowledge stalks on 
with alternate strides, and, in the rhythm ot progress, the 
swing of one limb makes way for that of the other. 

The mind measures all things by the scope of its own 
powers too much to rest on the naked facts of the world. 
The forces which they disclose, the plan which they reveal, 
the wisdom of its conception, and the kindness of its ex- 
ecution, push the thoughts farther back to the source of 
these truly intellectual and moral elements. The pro- 
gress, also, which is discovered, together with that irresist- 
ible claim, which the mind institutes for completion, for 
ends reached, for fruits achieved ; push it forward in 
thought, and lead it willingly to gather up the issues of ex- 
istence into the hand of Him who gave it. That this 
movement may be final, that a true compass and circuit, 
source and conclusion of the actual, the finite, the neces- 
sary, may be found ; that the mind may rest in one last 
stroke of comprehension, it brings forward the highest of 
its intellectual solvents — the Infinite, the Absolute. A free 
and holy personality is to be made to the mind and heart, 
the cause and compass of the universe. This movement 
becomes complete and assured in connection with revela- 
tion, an outer voice, which takes hold on inner powers, 
and gives steadfastness and certainty to their conclusions. 
The mind is not left alone to travel these outlying highways 
of thought. 

In this growth of knowledge, through science, philo- 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 207 

sophy and theology, deduction and induction play inter- 
mingled and inseparable parts. Deduction from necessary 
ideas, from definitions and axioms intuitively conceived 
under them, gives us that everywhere present instrument of 
mathematics. Induction is nothing without a theory, a 
conception of some sort, running side by side with its 
classifications, guiding and interpreting them, and ready 
deductively to furnish shining strokes of exposition. The 
theory with its derived conclusions is most impotent and 
misleading, save as induction presides at the birth and 
growth of it. The wise mind is always laying up the facts 
of nature, like stones in a building ; but laying them up 
under a plan, a conception, which it has caught by pene- 
trating beneath the surface, by interpreting signs and rela- 
tions unintelligible to the merely physical eye. Here, then, 
in the growth of general knowledge, we have the counter- 
part of that which we find in the individual mind. The elab- 
orative faculty, the understanding, is ever playing between 
the sensations and the intuitions, weaving them into a ra- 
tional experience. In like manner, the philosophy and 
the science of the world are bringing downward, deductively, 
the conceptions, the theories of the mind ; are bringing up- 
ward, inductively, the phenomena of nature and mind, and 
slowly uniting them into one compact web of knowledge ; 
the exposition running as light through the facts, and the 
facts embodying and presenting the exposition. The 
one process is as necessary as the other, the woof as the 
warp. 

§ 3. We wish to mark briefly the means by which the 
mind advances in acquisition, the instruments of intellec- 
tual growth at its service. Sensations, perceptions, enlarge 
for it the material of thought, and are themselves a simple, 
ultimate form of knowing. Nothing can replace them. 
Colors, sounds, odors, flavors, are apprehended exclusively 
in the organs by which they enter. Further, they give us 



208 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

inexhaustible material for inquiry, facts to which the mind 
may bring its explanatory processes, and which it may 
work up into knowledge. Intuitions without these, as 
mere intuitions, would remain empty formulae, intellectual 
solvents with no mysteries to resolve. 

Next come judgments. These are the steps in the ra- 
tionalizing, comprehending process. To be able to form 
a judgment, is to be able to put forth true intellectual effort ; 
is to turn the key in locks that guard all knowledge. It im- 
plies completeness of mental furniture, the entire material 
of growth. Simple judgments are the staples of knowledge; 
while they may be formed under any idea, that of resem- 
blance assumes chief significance. All classification pro- 
ceeds through this, and is a first and last step in progress. 
It is by a comparison of qualities, that our knowledge of 
the objects about us becomes servicable. Much, perhaps 
the larger share of our progress, is made by simple judg- 
ments, related indeed to one another, but not interlocked 
in reasoning. By a series of inquiries, we place objects in 
their appropriate classes, and furnish them ready both for 
our intellectual and physical uses. 

Reasoning, or interlocked judgments, follows simple 
judgments as a means of progress. There is considerable 
disagreement as to the forms and character of reasoning, 
arising largely, we think, from a different use of words. 
One form of procedure is covered by the words reasoning 
and logic as used by Hamilton, and another as used by 
Mill ; while others combine, with more or less confusion, 
the two uses. Hamilton, by a definition, confines the pro- 
vince of logic to the necessary laws of thought, or practical- 
ly to the demonstrative evolution of conclusions from pre- 
mises that are given. He does not inquire into the man- 
ner of obtaining the premises, but only into the forms, 
the certainty and safety of that purely intellectual process 
by which, as verbal propositions, they are found to hold 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 209 

those Other verbal propositions known as conclusions. 
The whole movement is thus detached from facts as facts, 
and, according to the general use of words, is, when rea- 
soning at all, deductive reasoning. That is, the conclusions 
are wholly contained in, and demonstratively taken from, 
the premises. Hamilton gives a technical and peculiar 
application to the words inductive and deductive, regards 
both forms of reasoning as equally demonstrative, and 
leaves wholly out of his logic that true induction, usually 
so-called, to the elucidation of which Mill has given his 
entire strength. Induction in its commonly accepted 
meaning, the establishment of a general principle through 
a limited number of specific examples, is all the reasoning 
which the sensualistic school can consistently recognize. 
What others regard as deductive reasoning, they are com- 
pelled to look upon in ultimate analysis as inductive. De- 
duction can be nothing more with them than the re-state- 
ment of a specific case already included in the establish- 
ment of the general principle, or major premise from which 
it is now taken. No conclusion is strictly demonstrative, 
since it is in advance of the premises on which it rests. 
The degrees of evidence for new statements, statements not 
confirmed by direct observation, vary with the amount and 
character of experience on which they rest. 

The entire system of logic, therefore, as presented by Ham- 
ilton, has for them comparatively little interest or value. It is 
a cunning play upon words, rather than an estimate of facts. 
They are interested in the growth of laws, principles, out of 
those separate instances which are only to be gathered and 
interpreted by patient, careful, and often doubtful induc- 
tion. Each party thus neglects a valuable field which the 
other exclusively cultivates. All that Mill regards as reason- 
ing, Hamilton scornfully rejects from the province of logic 
as invalid, as not presenting with certainty the conclusions 
in the premises from which they are taken. Mill, on the 



2IO PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Other hand, can only look on the complicated syllogisms 
of Hamilton, as a cumbersome statement of work already 
done, of knowledge already gained. 

Much is undoubtedly included by Hamiltion, in the for- 
mal expansion of his terminolog}'', as reasoning, which 
would generally be regarded as simple statement, as the 
fruit of single judgments, as the results of classification. 
This desk contains this drawer : This drawer contains this 
paper : Therefore this desk contains this paper. These pro- 
positions form a syllogism under one of the forms into 
which he divides deductive reasoning. Most would regard 
them as in no proper sense reasoning, but rather as a for- 
mal, unserviceable statement of a fact, learned by observa- 
tion. So also his inductive reasoning is made up of cum- 
bersome formulae of classification, " Gold is a metal, yel- 
low, ductile, fusible, and so on : These qualities constitute 
this body (are all of its parts) : Therefore this body is 
gold." Here is no argument properly so called, but the 
rendering of the results of the experimental test of a bit of 
metal, with the accompanying act of classification. There 
would seem to be room in a logic, covering all the forms 
of reasoning, and those of reasoning only, both for deduc- 
tion and induction, using the words in their more general 
and generally accepted meanings. An important branch 
of logic finds representation in Hamilton and Mill respec- 
tivelv. 

What is reasoning ? It is the reaching of new conclu- 
sions, certain or probable, by means of two or more inter- 
locked judgments. We would lay stress on the word new, 
and on the words certain ox probable. Our necessary ideas 
and our theories suffer expansion by a purely deductive 
process. Geometry is a deductive science, derived from 
intuitions, definitions, and axioms. Astronomy and me- 
chanics are full of pure deductions, resting on conceptions 
of force confirmed by experience. How much is involved 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 211 

in certain, simple statements, we often only learn by a 
series of related judgments, — by various applications of the 
included principle. This is one of the earliest forms of sci- 
entific reasoning, and presents in mathematics, pure and 
mixed, its most extended and servicable forms. The cer- 
tainty, and, when fitting data are found, the celerity of its 
conclusions, abundantly explain its fascination, and the po-*- 
sition it has held in investigation. The introduction of a 
mathematical unit, and application of the force of numbers 
to a subject, have usually been the signal for a rapid ad- 
vance. 

This deductive reasoning rests on intuitive steps, and 
will readily fall into the syllogistic form. The syllogism is 
perfect ; for the premises as premises, in their very state- 
ment, are seen, as intuitively unfolded, to contain the con- 
clusion. No outside circumstances affect their relation. 

Inductive reasoning, on the other hand, deals only with 
probabilities, because it pertains to things imperfectly known, 
and to facts whose conditions are ever changing. It rests 
at bottom on the intuition of causation, the simplest state- 
ment of which is. Every event must have a cause. Its 
corollaries are, that every effect measures its cause, that the 
two are exactly commensurate, and, that sameness in one 
is proof of sameness in the other. These spring from the 
original, independent conception of causation. Proof, un- 
der this notion, would be as certain as under the ideas of 
space and time, were we always dealing with perfectly fixed, 
and perfectly known, premises. We do not by observation 
so penetrate the nature of objects, and the character of com- 
plex phenomena, as to be sure of the elements present, and 
sure, therefore, of the effects that maybe expected. We do 
not know exactly how far one wood differs from another, 
one metal from another, one element, so called, from it- 
self at a former period. Much less do we know all the 
circumstances which aff"ect the complex problems of life, 



212 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

which influence the growth of a tree, which are concerned 
in the health of a man, in the welfare of a community. 
We here, therefore, advance from one case to another along 
uncertain links of likeness, not knowing positively, whether 
the agreement covers the essential points of the two cases or 
not. The various degrees of likeness are identity, same- 
ness, resemblance, analogy. So far as we are sure of the 
first, are we certain of the results, as compared with those 
of a previous experiment. 

In induction, by which from several examples we infer a 
general principle, we are proceeding on a resemblance 
more or less obscure, hence more or less uncertain. Dif- 
ferent cases stand on their own independent merits, and 
the probability in each is in proportion to the certainty 
with which the agreement in the example covers the force 
or forces involved in the causation under consideration. 
That all magnets attract iron, is a conclusion on which we 
rest with entire conviction, having by such uniform obser- 
vation traced this result to this cause. Yet it is not an im- 
possibility, that some new substance or combination of 
substances should exhibit the other properties of a magnet 
with the omission of this. We cannot say, how new con- 
ditions of action may modify the force termed magnetism, 
or indeed, what conditions, aside from magnetism, are in- 
fluential over it. Now, by far the larger part of the rea- 
soning of natural science and of every-day-life is of this 
character, creeping from resemblance to resemblance, and 
unable to affirm of its best conclusions, that they are de- 
monstrative. To this reasoning, the syllogism is not ap- 
^plicable, since the premises as premises are partial, and do 
not contain the law in its full breadth which is to be evolved 
from them. The philosophy of experience, therefore, can 
lay no great stress on the syllogism. The only service it 
can assign it, is that of a convenient re-statement of con- 
clusions already arrived at, and this, not in the exact line 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 213 

in which the first, the real argument lay. This was on the 
road upward to the principle, whereas the syllogism lies in 
the way downward to a specific example included under it. 
When inductive matter receives syllogistic statement, either 
the statement is defective, or the general principle is as- 
sumed, and then the case in hand taken from it. The ar- 
gument by which we mount to a general law, does not 
suffer a syllogism ; the seeming argument by which we de- 
scend to a particular fact is but a re-statement of previous 
knowledge, and yields a syllogism deductive in form. Of 
the defective, inductive syllogism, the following is an ex- 
ample : The metals A,B, C, represent (not are) all metals ; 
A, B, C, expand under heat ; therefore all metals ex- 
pand under heat. This result is proximately not absolutely 
true. If the law had been established by sufficient obser- 
vation, that all metals expand when heated, the follow- 
ing would be the deductive syllogistic statement of a single 
fact covered by it. All metals expand by heat : A is a 
metal ; therefore A expands under heat. 

The two kinds of argument, deductive and inductive, are 
fundamentally distinct, and stand in very different relations 
to the syllogism. The one is demonstrative, the other 
probable ; the one turns on intuitive, the other on observed 
relations ; the one on necessary connections, the other on 
imperfect resemblances. The confusion which has arisen 
in the various estimates of the value of the syllogisin seems 
to find its sources in the language employed, in two re- 
stricted definitions, and, more than all, in failing to estimate 
the influence of different philosophical systems on the re- 
spective methods of logic. 

As a last step in the growth of knowledge, beyond those 
achieved by observation and reasoning, we should place a 
recognition of the nature and limits of intuitive truth, and 
a quiet resting of the mind on the ultimate action of its 
own faculties. To accept the conditions of explanation of 



214 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. ^' 

comprehension, to repose on the simple, single basis of in- 
solvable ideas, standing in their own light, seems to be the 
most difficult, not practically, but philosophically the most 
difficult thing for the mind to do, and the most needful. 

§ 4. The intellect being thus furnished with faculties, 
and stored with their fruits, we inquire into its control over 
them, its directing influence. We speak first of the 
government of the thoughts. The mind can direct the eye, 
the ear, to any object it chooses, and command their pro- 
longed attention. It can also make any object the subject 
of protracted contemplation, and confine the analytic and 
reasoning processes to it. It can intensify and guide its 
mental activities in degrees varying with the power which 
previous practice has given it. This voluntary direction 
and handling of faculties is attention, and is referable to 
that personal force from which all the faculties as separate 
forces or directions of action spring. 

The number of objects which can at once be made the 
subjects of attention has been a question vigorously debat- 
ed. The mind seems to be single in what may be termed 
its line of movement, its chain of connections ; but to be 
able to unite in this movement many diverse things. Our 
thoughts braid into one experience, link in one argument, 
diverse subjects ; they proceed by junction and inclusion, 
evening and strengthening the thread with material drawn 
from the right hand and the left. 

The reason why it has been doubted whether the mind 
can attend to more than one object is in part found in the 
fact, that the very eff"ort of the mind to decide the question 
serves to occasion that fixed, full, complete attention which 
is concentrated on a single object, and leads to the partial 
exclusion of other objects. Of course we cannot give the 
entire attention to two objects as two, struggling in the same 
instant to contemplate them with distinctness separately. 
Failing in this, we have hastily concluded that the mind 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 215 

can attend to but one thing at a time. Let the thoughts 
move freely, and it seems obvious that we do consider sev- 
eral objects at once, some of us more, some less. The 
shepherd counts his flock as they pass before him or stand 
around him. He will more likely do it by threes or fives, 
grouping the numbers by a stroke of the eye. One prac- 
ticed in dividing paper into quarter quires will instantan- 
eously, on the ruffled edge, select the number six, and with 
astonishing rapidity run through the pile. This tendency 
in enumeration to divide objects into greater and smaller 
groups, according to the degree of skill, plainly reveals the 
power of the mind to contemplate at once several objects. 
Indeed, were the mind limited to absolute singleness of at- 
tention and direction, its states would succeed each other in 
a disconnected and independent form. 

A more important question arises, as to the power which 
the mind possesses in introducing to itself the objects which 
it may afterward consider. So far as these are external ob- 
jects it may open for them the avenues of perception, and 
then select among them those which it will more carefully 
observe. It may also seek the locality of remembered or 
described objects, and thus prolong its consideration. In 
this direction, the mind is limited, first to things that are ; 
second to those among these known to it, and accessible to 
it. A large share of the government we have over our 
thoughts is found in our mastery of the external conditions 
of life, of situations and circumstances. A deeper inquiry 
lies in the questions. How far does the mind control the 
order of ideas that are passing through it ? How far is 
the flow established and maintained by independent con- 
nections ? 

The doctrine of association, used as a universal solvent 
of mental phenomena, has been the occasion of ascribing 
a dependence and passivity to intellecutal connections, 
which we deem wholly false. The association of ideas has 



Zl6 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

been accepted as an ultimate fact, and itself without expla- 
nation, been proffered as an explanation of ever)- other. 
This solution has proceeded under physical analogies, es- 
pecially those of habit in the body. A form of activity, of- 
ten returning to the muscles, so interlocks the nerves and 
muscles, so passes over their connection from the voluntary 
to the automatic region, that the mere fact of repetition be- 
comes a reason for many movements not directly intended. 
Under the suggestion, perhaps, of this fact, ideas are spok- 
en of as associated, and this association seems to be often 
thought of as involving some direct, almost mechanical or 
vital connection of one idea with another ; as if the first 
evoked and drew on the second by an immediate force. 
Thus we have such expressions as the ' ' cohesiveness of 
ideas," "the principle of cohesiveness," "the property of 
plastic adhesiveness," "the tenacity of association." These 
physical ideas should find no place in philosophy. Nei- 
ther should the mere fact of sequence, though dignified 
with the title of the law of association, be regarded as any 
final explanation, except by those who resolve all our 
knowledge of events into that of naked succession. Those 
who thus use the law of association, refer the order of ideas 
in the mind to it, and give the mind itself but little con- 
trol over them, beyond that of hastening or checking their 
movement. 

The real link between associated ideas would seem to be 
chiefly that established by memory. It is the living power 
of the mind, rather than an intrinsic coherence of ideas, 
that combines them into thought, and locates them in revery. 
Memory underlies association, rather than association mem- 
ory. The memory proceeds along the connections of 
place, time, resemblance and causation, because these are the 
forms under which objects are principally presented to it ; 
and the groups of memory principally determine the con- 
nections and dependence of conceptions, when they return 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 217 

to the mind. One object tends to restore in memory, more 
or less distinctly, the entire group of which it forms a part, 
and its earlier and later relationships are renewed, because 
the memory is by it directed to that portion of experience 
in which it has played a part. Ideas are thus interlocked 
in memory and by memory, and return to the mind sur- 
rounded more or less completely with their adjuncts, theii ■ 
companions in previous knowledge. The mind does grasp 
objects collectively, as time and place present them ; it is 
natural, therefore, that it should restore them in the same way 
in memory. A second ground of association is that of the 
deductive dependence of ideas. The logical power of the 
mind on the presence of a part expounds it by a reference 
to the whole ; or on the presence of a whole unfolds it in its 
parts. 

These two forms of association correspond to the two 
methods of acquiring knowledge. Observation, induction 
present objects as physical wholes, and the memory so re- 
tains them ; analysis, deduction unfolds ideas, and the mem- 
mory and the logical faculties combine to repeat, on fit occa- 
sions, this process. The cement of ideas is the living forces 
that use them, not a dead adhesiveness belonging to them as 
ideas, or dependent on the nervous conditions of their pres- 
ence. It is not a reverberation of tissues, but of thoughts 
to which attention should be directed. 

We see at once, then, that the power of the mind over 
its trains of ideas is greater than many are willing to admit. 
Take any one moment, with the tendencies and memories 
of the past fixed, the circumstances of the present estab- 
lished ; the current of the desires strong and declared, and 
thoughts and conceptions may seem rather to sweep inde- 
pendently through the mind, a deep, uncontrollable cur- 
rent, than to be called forth and used by it. Take, how- 
ever, a longer period, let the mind desire to assume con- 
trol, and this appearance of helplessness will pass away, 



2l8 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

and our impressions will be reversed. Times are set apart 
to definite inquiries. The passing hours bring each its 
suggestion of its part of the plan. The memory is more 
and more stored with material suitable to the investigation 
and effort in hand. External circumstances favorable to 
the inquiry, are secured. The desires, quickened by exer- 
cise, lend their aid in constraining and spurring on the 
thoughts. The purpose, kept in view, evokes from the 
memory on each new exigency, every fitting idea in the in- 
creasing circle of its information, while the logical connec- 
tion of ideas, guides the pursuit along the right trail. Un- 
der these conditions, we shortly behold an intellectual 
power which works as intensely, as directly, as uninterrupt- 
edly toward its end, as the engine whose valves and pistons 
and wheels are driven by a mechanical agency. A way- 
ward pleasure of vagrant connections may turn the thoughts 
for a moment aside, but not more frequently nor more un- 
fortunately than the flower or the fruit, the wayside traveller 
steadily pursuing his journey. States and powers of mind 
are not indeed instantly determined, immediately gained ; 
but tendencies are established, and control acquired as 
certainly here, as in any form of effort. The chain of thought 
does not drag itself along, the mind being left a spectator, 
to observe its links, or by a spasmodic effort to arrest them. 
The person himself may determine within the limits which 
the surrounding world presents him, what shall be his re- 
sources of thought, and what the motives calling them ' ' into 
act and use. " 

The selecting power of the mind is found in the pur- 
poses it is pursuing ; aided by memory, they restore at the 
suggestion of the present thought, all the pertinent material 
which its store-houses can furnish. The whole movement 
is a living one, under a living intelligent power, and is no 
more to be expounded as a dead process, an adhesion of 
one thought to another, than is the life of the plant, or 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 219 

of the animal to be traced to simply chemical forces. 
The very secret of life is to combine material into living 
organs ; the very knack of mind is consecutive, coherent, 
self-supporting thought. 

§ 5, The last point on which we have occasion to 
speak under the dynamics of the intellect is the difference 
in mental endowments between the brute and man. We 
are necessarily somewhat theoretical in handling a subject 
so much beyond direct knowledge ; but trust our theory 
will commend itself as the simplest explanation of the facts, 
with the least assumption, and the fewest forces. There 
seems to be no proof, that -any animal, the most sagacious, 
possesses any intuitive ideas, and consequently that it 
forms any judgments properly so-called. There is no con- 
scious estimate of the value and bearings of sensations, no 
classification of them inductively, no conclusion deductive- 
ly drawn from the premises as such. Sensation, perception, 
memory and imagination, evidently belong to the higher 
animals, and by these faculties, we believe, all the in- 
tellectual phenomena they present can be readily explained, 
while the ascription of fuller powers than these to them, 
brings difficulties which cannot be easily met. To those 
who doubt the possibility of presenting the appearance of 
reasoning processes, of complete intellectual action, with 
these limited and elementary powers, we would commend 
the works of Bain, and kindred philosophers, who, with 
patient and adroit analysis, think themselves successful in 
resolving the phenomena of mind, in their most exalted 
forms, into the automatic play of sensations and perceptions, 
on the nervous, the intellectual constitution. They at 
least render this service to true philosophy, of enabling us 
to explain brute life, without elevating it in gifts to a ra- 
tional platform. Those who do not believe that the races 
of men could have sprung from one pair, may be referred 
to Darwin ; those who cannot explain the sagacity of the 



220 I^RINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

dog, his apparent sense of shame and approval, without 
endowing him with the entire circle of human powers, 
moral and intellectual, may well find profit and conviction 
in the works of the sensualistic school. 

The truth is, memory and perception can, by conscious 
yet direct action, present, with close agreement through quite 
a wide range of conduct, an image of rational and moral* 
behavior. Memory can unite impressions and their ap- 
propriate accompanying actions in permanent associations, 
exhibiting results as safe and sagacious, as if the union had 
taken place by judgment. We constantly interpret the con- 
duct of animals under the analogies of our own experience ; 
an act more unphilosophicai even, than for the accomplished 
and sensitive man to infer the exact counterpart of his own 
feelings in the clown from an agreement of external actions. 
The aspen trembles without fear : the dog skulks and 
crouches in apparent shame without a sense of guilt. The 
severe tones of voice, the sharp eye, punishment associated 
in experience with like action, are a sufficient explanation 
of conduct which we often hastily regard as showing the 
germs of a moral nature. 

Indeed, this inferring the same sweep of thought and 
feeling from coincident actions in man and in the animal, 
leads constantly to the most insecure and unfortunate con- 
clusions : unfortunate when they are made the grounds of 
cruel exactions, and the tyrannous handling of domestic 
animals. Says Professor Whitney, in his treatise on Lan- 
guage and the Study of Language : "A dog, for instance, 
as surely apprehends the general idea of a tree, a man, a 
piece of meat, cold and heat, light and darkness, pleasure 
and pain, kindness, threatening, barking, running, and so 
on, through the whole range, limited as compared with 
ours, of matter within his ken, as if he had a word for each. 
He can as clearly form the intention, ' I mean to steal that 
bone, if its owner turns his back and gives me a fair chance/' 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 221 

as if he said it to himself in good English. He can draw 
a complex syllogism, when applying to exigencies the re- 
sults of past experience, and can determine ' that smoking 
water must be hot, and I shall take good care not to put 
my foot into it,' that is to say, 'water that smokes is hot : 
hot water hurts : this water is hot : ergo it will hurt my 
foot.' " — -page 414. 

While making no objection to the spirit of the passage, 
we regard its philosophical implications as all wrong. Keen 
perception and quick association by an active, retentive 
memory olfer a complete explanation of the facts involved, 
and of kindred ones, without supposing the presence of a 
single act of judgment, of one thoughtful junction of prem- 
ises and conclusions : nor the recognition of any general 
idea or general principle. The fear of the master is present, 
and the desire of the bone ; withdraw the first, and the 
last comes into unobstructed operation. The sight of steam, 
and a delicate, distinct sense of heat, associated with pain 
under exposure, apply as direct a restraint to action as the 
shutting of a valve to the ingress of water. The difference 
between the two cases lies in the fact, that in one instance, 
the restraining power appears in, and works through 
consciousness, and in the other it does not. 

That association is sufficient to explain the apparently 
thoughtful, deliberate action of brutes, is seen, in the 
first place, in the way in which their sagacious tricks are 
acquired. A cow learns to open a gate ; but how ? First, 
by accidentally or impatiently rubbing her head and horns 
against it, and thus loosening the latch. This process, re- 
peated once or twice, establishes a connection between the 
act and its results, and later, when she wishes to be free, 
she worries the gate open. A change of fastening relieves 
the difficulty, not because the new method of reaching the 
latch is necessarily impossible to her, but because it is not 
accomplished by the same blind movement which removed 



212 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

from the catch the previous one. The horse learns to un- 
tie himself; vary the knot, and his skill disappears. That the 
protracted experience of the brute must yield to it not very 
unfrequently a repeated concurrence of the same cause and 
effect, and thus enable it to reach the one through the 
other, in those cases in which appetite impresses on the 
memory the connection, is obvious. Indeed, that this 
happens so rarely, is quite as much a matter of surprise, as 
are the few cases of apparent skill. We know the cunning, 
vicious tricks which a street animal acquires ; but we also 
know that in a keen appetite on the one side, and much 
persecution on the other, it has under the law of association 
the most unwearying and vigilant instructors. The restive 
horse, scorning the restraint of fences, has compounded 
his education of short and easy attainments. The spiteful 
nag, grazing on a city common, has learned the ins and 
outs of advantage, the safeties and dangers of provender, by 
many a sharp thrust and sturdy thwack, and it is not sur- 
prising that it has quite a store of ideas pricked into its 
tough, retentive hide. 

The same truth is seen in the method of training the dog 
and the horse. The first effort is to establish a definite, 
pleasant association of reward with the action to be done, 
and one of suffering with the action to be avoided. Says 
a skillful handler of horses, "The difficult point is to se- 
cure the right action in the first instance. Every approach 
to it should be at once recognized and encouraged. The 
animal should be petted and rewarded at each repeti- 
tion, till the thing required becomes habitual" — that is, till 
the right association is established. On the other hand, the 
wrong action is painfully and peremptorily checked, till 
the tendency to it is corrected. In the meantime, the fit- 
ting words of command uniformly accompany the disci- 
pline, and it requires no intelligent apprehension of lan- 
guage to lead the horse to stop at the word whoa, when it 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 223 

has been repeatedly accompanied with a severe jerk of 
the bit. 

A change of masters always interferes with the training 
of animals, as for instance of a yoke of oxen, because 
there is a breaking up of associations, a diversity, and 
hence a confusion, of methods. Passion and hasty pun- 
ishment, likewise retard the education of a horse. The 
reason is obvious under the principle of association. If 
the brute were in a measure rational, he might interpret 
aright the flogging, and profit by it ; but, acting under as- 
sociation, his consciousness is simply flooded with suffering 
and fears, and henceforth, on the like provocation, he be- 
comes restive and excited in anticipation of a similar, pain- 
ful experience. So too, punishment that is not propor- 
tionate to the wrong, or does not immediately follow it, — 
and spring as it were out of it, is of no avail. The 
association is lost, and no reasoning process is present to 
take its place. All the facts of skillful and successful dis- 
cipline in animals come in to corroborate the assertion, 
that action, with them, follows the appropriate perception 
under fixed associations. 

But it may be asked, what is the negative proof.? Why 
is not the opposite supposition of reasoning an admissible 
one ? We answer, it involves at once the entire circle of 
regulative ideas, postulates more powers than are needed to 
explain the phenomena, and is not consistent with the fact, 
that brutes exhibit no such growth as should, in some in- 
stances at least, follow the rudimentary possession of such 
high endowments. If the animal reflects, there is no rea- 
son why he should not occasionally express by lan- 
guage, at least by signs, the results of that reflection. 
One rational thought is not possible without the possibility 
of two, of three, of many thoughts. One syllogism carries 
with it the entire logic, and such powers would quickly com- 
mand expression. This utterance of judgments we should 



224 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the more anticipate, as the most sagacious brutes are in 
constant company with man, and might learn from him, in 
some instances, vocal language, in others, sign language. 

The only way, however, in which a brute does show in- 
telligence is in action, and this may as well spring from 
association as from reflection. The utmost efforts of in- 
struction expended by man on animals, even when it has 
reached to the mechanical repetition of words, has only se- 
cured results in conduct readily referable to slow, estab- 
lished, and patiently confirmed associations, the varying 
perceptions of the animal putting it, in connection with 
accompanying pains and pleasures, on the clue of the be- 
havior designed for it. 

Moreover, if rational ideas are conceded to the brute, 
they must be granted in a more powerful and perfect form, 
rather than in a less perfect form than to man. The chick- 
en, the young of animals, almost immediately begi-n to 
successfully estimate all the relations of objects in space. 
They evince more mastery over them at the end of a 
few hours or days, than does the child at the close of as 
many years. . If, therefore, any judgments intervene in 
this process ; if the perceptions do not directly, by an im- 
mediate transfer of stimulus, secure and guide the mo- 
tion ; if there is not the same spontaneous complete- 
ness in the action of the mind that there is in that 
of the body, what a marvelous, unaccountable rapidity 
of development should we have here. We must exalt in 
accuracy, ease and cekrity, the reflective processes of the 
animal far above those of man. This seems, to us at least, 
a redudio ad absurdum. But, if the sport of the lamb, its 
leaping and running ; if the flight of the bird, and the 
ease with which it hits and rests on the spray, indicate no 
conscious recognition of space, the presumption is that 
other less astonishing powers have no basis in reasoning or 
in intuition. 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 225 

We object, also — though this consideration may have 
little weight with some minds — to the character which this 
idea of reflection ascribes to the consciousness of the brute. 
A thoughtful animal would be one of the most unfortunate 
of beings, the incubus of its physical structure weighing 
down its destiny. Hope and fear to a being like this would 
be an unnecessary and cruel source of suffering ; nor do 
animals often show apprehension and alarm except in the 
immediate presence of danger. 

But it will be said, there are examples of sagacity on the 
part of animals which candor forbids us to refer to associa- 
tion, to anything short of reflection. To this we answer, 
these examples require more searching inquiiy as to their 
exact form and value than they have received, as the shades 
of action that distinguish association and reflection are un- 
obtrusive and delicate ; and few are aware of the extent of 
results easily within the scope of association alone. Far- 
ther, we are not considering what would be referred in man 
to reflection ; but how much is possible to quick percep- 
tions, strong appetites, and a ready memory, when they 
are left to act alone, and are not therefore superseded or 
embarrassed by reasoning. Says the writer last quoted, 
' ' It has often been remarked, that the crow has a capacity 
to count, up to a certain number. If two hunters enter a 
hut, and only one comes out, he will not be allured near 
the place by any bait, however tempting ; the same will be 
the case, if three enter and two come out, or if four enter 
and three come out, and so on till a number is reached 
which is beyond his arithmetic. " How far we are to give 
credit to these current statements is very uncertain, but 
granting their accuracy, they do not require for their ex- 
planation a distinct recognition on the part of the crow of 
numbers, a conscious subtraction and the acceptance of a 
definite remainder. Concede these, and the sagacious bird 
would quickly find in the objective teaching of the rowed 



226 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

corn-fields before him, an express provision for a grander 
arithmetical procedure. Within narrow limits, groups of 
two, or three, or four, or five objects are directly and readily 
distinguishable in perception aside from numeration ; be- 
yond these they do not so vary the impression as to make the 
difference easily observable. Groups of twenty — and of 
twenty-one persons will hardly be distinguished by a stroke 
of the eye. Certain separable sensations, therefore, may be 
associated in the experience of the crow with danger, while 
others inseparable have made no such impression. Let, 
however, one of the twenty men always remain, and doubt- 
less the crow would soon attach danger to this number also, 
and the philosophers find in the new fact proof of a grow- 
ing power of calculation. The crow learns by experience 
to fear man, that is to connect danger with certain percep- 
tions. In rare cases, under protracted experience and va- 
ried discipline, he might carry this association two steps 
farther, to three definite, closely united impressions ; a hut, 
the entrance of three, the departure of two. This expe- 
rience, provoking alarm in him, would extend by admoni- 
tion to others, and would at once receive the interpretation 
above given. We find it very difficult not to attribute to 
actions the same degree of thought and intelligence which 
would be indicated by them in us. Yet this tendency 
should be easily overcome, when we remember that we are 
compelled to cover up by the word instinct, actions which 
in man would show the most wonderful knowledge and 
skill. It is certainly no very strange thing, that three per- 
ceptions should, in the ready memory of a crow, alert and 
watchful, by life-long instinct and habit directing its atten- 
tion to like facts, find at length a fixed association with 
danger. 

It is narrated, that a raven hit upon this method of de- 
frauding a dog of a portion of his dinner. The raven would 
approach so near and so annoyingly as to provoke pursuiL 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE INTELLECT. 22/ 

This pursuit would draw the dog from the dish, and the raven, 
quick of wing, would immediately rise and pounce down 
on the unguarded meal. Observe how easily such a series 
of associations would be formed, the acts constituting it 
finding union and undesigned repetition in experience, till 
they became a habit apparently shaped on a rational pur- 
pose. Impelled by hunger, the raven would naturally ap- 
proach the dog as near as he dare venture ; the dog as na- 
turally would resent the intrusion. The raven, pressed by 
pursuit, and rising on the wing, would see the unpro- 
tected dish, and at once pluck a portion of the coveted 
food. This process would repeat itself a second and a 
third time, till, connected with the desired result, it 
would become direct and constant. What shall be said 
of the reasoning of the. dog who repeatedly suffered from 
such a form of depredation ? It matters little whether the 
above instances are true ; others like them are true, and 
admit of similar explanation. The fear and caution of a 
dog when he has committed an offense, the cunning and 
skill of a fox, the pliancy of a horse, are not surprising, 
when we consider their quick senses, retentive memories, 
and protracted, varied, and severely enforced experience 
Knowledge, moreover, is communicable between animals 
by inheritance and by trans-fer. The obedience, docility 
and training of the horse are readily imparted to his yoke- 
fellow, and the fear and sagacity of a fox help to awaken 
like qualties in his companion. 

The practical value of the above conclusions is very 
great, in teaching us how to handle, and how to estimate, 
brute life ; and still more in establishing an impassable 
barrier between it and rational life. If this difference ex- 
ists between them, then is man unapproachable by the 
animal. He stands on another platform of being. It 
is not an accident of physical structure, the absence of 
language, less fortunate or less protracted development, 



228 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

that divide the two; but entirely new endowments, bring- 
ing with them a new and exalted sphere of being. Man 
shares consciousness, a perception and retention of external 
events, with the animal ; but not an intuition of the invisible, 
not the rational apprehension and government of action, 
not his moral and spiritual endowments. Whatever may 
be the fortunes of the body under physical classification, 
philosophy sets up a sufficient defense against the invasion 
of the lower world. The spiritual, the truly spiritual 
realm cannot be grappled with hooks of steel, nor boarded 
and defiled by a harpy throng of unclean things, of 
merely sensual beings. 



BOOK 11. 



§ I. We have now reached the second class of mental 
phenomena, that of the feelings. These have received less 
attention than the intellectual faculties. They are far more 
immerous and complicated, and have been more recently 
regarded as a distinct division. The three classes re- 
cognized by Kant, have since his day been generally ac- 
cepted. Knowing, feeling, and willing, are each forms of 
action so simple, that it is easier to perceive, than to state 
their differences. Indeed, expository definition of each is 
impossible in other than synonymous terms. Each is 
known and only fully known by experience. There are, 
however, certain diverse relations of these several acts, or 
states of mind that may be pointed out. 

Though the feelings were late in being recognized as a 
distinct portion of our mental endowments, popular lan- 
guage has so far severed them from our thoughts, as to re- 
fer them to a separate part of our nature. It is a method 
of expression still somewhat unusual to common speech, 
to talk of the emotions of the mind ; we more frequently 
hear the words, the sentiments, the emotions, the feelings 
of the heart. 



230 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

A first distinction to be marked between knowing and 
feeling is, that the one proceeds under a double, the other 
under a single form. The thought, and the object of the 
thought, lie distinguishable in the mind, while the feeling 
is a simple mental state. This has been expressed by say- 
ing, that the processes of thought are more objective, those 
of feeling more subjective. This language, however, 
seems not quite explicit. In one point of view, the feeling 
is more objective than the thought. To be sure, the 
thought attaches itself necessarily and distinctly to an object, 
but that object is itself usually a subjective one, something 
grasped and held by the mind as an object of contempla- 
tion, so that the entire movement maintains a subjective 
character. On the other hand, a feeling is usually occa- 
sioned by an action or an object external to the mind, un- 
der whose influence the emotion is suffered. This object, 
in connection with our stronger and more well-defined 
feelings, evokes especial consideration, is sedulously sought 
after or avoided, and thus imparts a peculiarly objective 
turn or tendency to emotion. Take such passions as love 
or hatred, such sentiments as admiration and contempt ; 
consider the appetites and the desires, how objective are 
they in the frame of mind and cast of action they produce. 
Indeed, the first condition of contemplation, a quiet, sub- 
jective handling of a topic, is, that the feelings be hushed, 
that these restless children of the household be put to sleep, 
and the thoughts be left to move uninterrupted within their 
own circle. On account of this ambiguity of the word 
subjective, and the marked external tendency given by 
I feeling to action, we prefer to speak of thought as bi-partiU 
and feeling as simple. 

Neither method of presentation holds equally well in all 
forms of the phenomena concerned. Perception is dis- 
tinguishable from sensation by its more objective bearing 
only on condition, that we regard a feeling within the body 



THE FEELINGS. 23 1 

as subjective in reference to the contemplation of the rnind, 
which, strictly speaking, it is not. Sensation most distinct- 
ly separates itself from perception by its more definite and 
local action in the organ involved. In speaking of a feel- 
ing as subjective, reference is had of course to the emotion 
itself, and not to the contemplation of the object which 
may accompany it. 

A second diversity in thinking and feeling is found in 
their dependence on volition ; the former is more, the lat- 
ter less immediately the result of voluntary effort. The 
thoughts are more directly reached and guided by the will 
than are the feelings. Indeed, the most of these are so oc- 
casioned by the immediate and unavoidable presence of 
external conditions, that it is only indirectly and with con- 
siderable delay, that volition can reach and change them. 
Our thoughts, our subjects of reflection are the primary ob- 
jects of volition, while the feelings are slowly changed with 
a change in their intellectual conditions. 

While the thoughts are more directly subject to will 
than the emotions, the emotions more immediately influ- 
ence the will than do the thoughts. Here is found a third 
difference of relation. The state of feeling is the direct 
ground and occasion of choice, while our opinions govern 
the will only as they first govern the heart. 

The only opportunity of confounding knowing and 
feeling, seems to arise from their common relation to con- 
sciousness. We express the fact that our feelings, as our 
own, are present to the mind, by the language, I know that 
I feel, I know that I am angry, I know that I have sympa- 
thy with the suffering. We thus seem to underlay feeling 
with knowing as if the one were but a peculiar form of the 
other. The same reasoning, however, would apply to vo- 
lition, and the difliculty springs only from the defect of lan- 
guage. We express the simple and single fact of a feeling 
under the form of a double act, one branch of which is an 



232 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

emotion, and the other is a cognition. A better analysis has 
enabled us to see that the expression, I know that I feel, no 
more implies a double act than the kindred assertion, I 
know that I know. Divide the act of knowing into two, 
and we must still farther part it into three, into four, and be 
left finally without any simple basis for it, 

§ 2. The feelings may be divided by their intrinsic cha- 
racter, or by the objects or conditions which draw them 
forth. The first would seem the more just ground of dis- 
tinction, yet the second finds easier application, and closely 
allies itself to the first, smce different grounds or occasions 
give different emotions. Our first division into physical, 
intellectual and spiritual feelings proceeds on the conditions 
or occasions on which they are respectively called forth. 
The physical feelings are located in the body, have a physi- 
cal source, and pertain to the state of physical organs. 
The intellectual feelings arise in connection with the esti- 
mates, the judgments of the mind. It is the perceived re- 
lations in which we stand to objects about us, and espe- 
cially to other men, which call forth these emotions. Their 
ground then is an intellectual one ; since, if we were desti- 
tute of thought, forethought, if we could form no conclu- 
sions concerning the effect of things, their approach or their 
possession, the effect of the actions and character of others 
upon ourselves, we should be left destitute of these feelings, 
and only subject to the immediate play of physical forces 
upon us. 

The third class of feelings is the spiritual. The word 
spiritual is not so definite as the other two. We employ it 
to designate the highest portion of our nature, that by which 
we have a spiritual, a rational, and responsible life as op- 
posed to a merely intellectual one. Now it is our intui- 
tions, more particularly a limited portion of them, which 
confer these higher powers, and put us in these higher rela- 
tions The sentiments elicited by these more profound re- 



THE FEELINGS. 233 

velations, this deeper insight into the rational world, the 
truly spiritual world, are the spiritual feelings. More con- 
cisely, the spiritual feelings are those immediately condi- 
tioned on the intuitions. 

Of those several classes, the first may belong in feeble 
form to the lowest animal life, and in full form to the high- 
est. The second belongs chiefly to man, though in a few 
of the nobler animals, it finds partial presentation in con- 
nection with the tacit anticipations, the informal conclu- 
sions of association. The dog does, through the education 
of a retentive memory, permanently interlock what, for 
want of another word, we must call conceptions, and is, 
therefore, ready for the feeling of joy or fear in view of an- 
ticipated results. Yet, in fullness and variety, these emotions 
do not compare in the most sagacious brute with the cor- 
responding class of feelings in man. Indeed, much that we 
regard of this character in the animals below us, is but the 
false, the flattering interpretation which we bring from con- 
sciousness for the explanation of acts, in their external form 
alone, like ours. The dog licks the hand of his master, 
and that master conceives it, not as the act of a blind, in- 
stinctive fellowship, worth intellectually no more than the 
good will of the cow that cards with her rough tongue the 
hide of her gratified companion, but as a distinct expression 
of a clearly defined attachment. The third class, from the 
nature of the case, belongs exclusively to man, and, in its 
full forms, to the cultivated, the developed man, — one who 
has been ripened out of physical sensations, out of the half- . 
way ground of the simple connections of thought, into the 
habitual and active play of his intuitive powers. 

The words by v/hich we designate the emotions are, for 
the most part, very loose in their application. Of these, 
the word feeling is the most general. It ranges through 
the three classes. The pains and pleasures of the body are 
feelings ; equally so are the fears and hopes of the prudent. 



234 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the delights of the artist, and the satisfaction of one obe - 
dient to moral truth. The word emotion, is applicable to 
the feelings of the two higher classes, hardly to those of the 
lower ; while the word sentiment finds at least its fullest 
meaning in the third class only. We designate as sensa- 
tions, physical feelings exclusively ; as passions, intellec- 
tual feelings exclusively, -^though only a part of them reach 
the intensity indicated by the term ; — and as affections, the 
higher, the moral emotions exclusively. That, however, 
which is especially confusing in the language of the emo- 
tions, is the different states included under one word, like 
that of love. We love the food that pleases us, we love the 
wealth that gratifies desire, the scenery that delights the 
taste, the person whose character meets the approval of our 
moral sense. We have occasion, therefore, to put feelings 
covered by the same word, into entirely distinct classes, and 
to regard love as an appetite, a passion, or an affection, ac- 
cording to its several objects. 

We shall give a chapter to each of the three divi- 
sions. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Physical Feelings. 

§ I. The physical feelings are distinguished from others 
by arising directly from the body. They have a physical 
source and locality somewhere in the body, or, like nervous 
debility, are diffused through it. They are divisible as re-* 
gards general quality, into pleasurable, indifferent, and 
painful feelings. By indifterent feelings we do not mean 
complex states of mingled pain and pleasure, but states de- 
clared to consciousness, but neither as yet agreeable or dis- 



THE PHYSICAL FEELINGS. 235 

agreeable. The three divisions, if we look at them in re- 
ference to action, may be termed the stimulative, the indi- 
cative and the repressive feelings. The condition of certain 
organs indicates a preparation, or want of preparation for 
activity. Thus an appetite gently aroused prepares the way 
for indulgence. Simply as an appetitive movement, as yet 
neither balked nor gratified, it is hardly an occasion of pain 
or pleasure, but merely points out, gives suggestion of, a 
line of gratification. 

As we begin to indulge the appetite, a sensible, declared 
pleasure sets in, stimulating farther indulgence, and this 
continues till the present power of the sensibility is ex- 
pended. Then a second indifferent, or indicative feeling 
succeeds, dissuading, without pain, from further indulgence. 
If this limit, however, be over-passed, positive discomfort 
follows, decidedly repressing activity. These three states 
may be regarded as a series of alternating cycles through 
which the physical feelings tend to move, and in one or 
other of which, when active, they remain for the time being. 
There is a farther connection between the three states, in 
the fact that they arise successively in one organ, or set of 
organs. 

§ 2. The first of these sources of distinct physical feel- 
ings which we mention, are the special senses, the organs 
of sensation. The chief of these, at once recognizable, are 
touch, taste and smell. Sensations and perceptions should 
be distinguished, and these classed with cognitions, and 
those with feelings. Perceptions have with some clearness 
a bi-partite character ; the object and the action directed to- 
wards it at once appear. The seeing, and the object seen, 
are necessary complements to each other ; whereas by taste 
and smell we only indirectly, inferentially, and inquiringly 
reach the source, given and secured under another sense, 
that of sight. Evidently in sensation, we are engaged with 
the feeling ; in perception with the source of the impression. 



236 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Perceptions also differ from sensations in having so little 
of a declared, local character, that, though physical in their 
source, they no more reveal their physical connections than 
does pure thought. Sensations, on the contrary, disclose 
themselves as a certain peculiar state of a given organ, and 
are therefore to be ranked as feelings. Of all the senses, 
touch occupies the most intermediate ground ; while its 
phenomena ordinarily present the phases of feeling, it may, 
in the absence of the higher senses of sight, of hearing, 
become so far intellectual as scarcely to direct attention to 
the sensation present as a sensation. It thus becomes the 
unobserved medium of knowledge, the matter revealed, 
being the only object consciously, obviously before the 
mind. The two offices are so intermingled in the organs 
of touch, that while this sense ordinarily performs the office 
of a special susceptibilit}', giving a new class of feelings, it 
may by cultivation come primarily to be a means of know- 
ledge, yielding perceptions rather than sensations. Any sen- 
sation may be the occasion of a judgment, bearing the 
mind outward to a particular object ; the peculiarity of 
touch is, that by protracted and habitual use for this end, 
the sensational element is lost sight of, sinks from observa- 
tion, and the perceptive element rises in its place, making 
this ordinarily over-shadowed sense, a not inefficient sub- 
stitute for sight. 

These special senses, all of them, stand closely connected 
with the intellect, and have thus been more frequently 
united with the organs of perception, and fallen into the 
first class of mental powers. The distinction now made 
seems, however, fore-shadowed in the physical fact, that the 
senses of sight and hearing are so immediately connected 
with the cerebrum, the seat and instrument of thought, that 
a removal of this destroys them, though leaving the other 
senses unimpared. Touch, taste and smell, however, while 
primarily feelings, are used constantly as means of discrim- 



THE PHYSICAL FEELINGS. 237 

ination and guides to action. They very frequently draw 
after them conclusions, set in motion the judgment, and thus 
return on the will through the mediation of the mind. 
This is the ordinary action of a pure, well-defined, special 
sensation. Taste may be so pungent or nauseating, as to 
produce a direct, involuntary action of ejection ; but odors 
and flavors are usually, in their effects on action, simply 
grounds of discrimination by which we are guided in ac- 
cepting or rejecting the object before us, in assigning it a 
definite position among the things used by us. Our sen- 
sations thus start from the central, the perceptive, the indi- 
cative point, and then become either stimulative or repres- 
sive, according to their nature. 

Sensations are also three-fold in their relations to enjoy- 
ments. From the midway ground of indifference, they pass 
into pain and pleasure. Their double office is here again very 
obvious. They are means of independent gratification as 
well as of guidance. They are sources of abundant, or- 
ganic, physical pleasure, and find a primary purpose in this 
their direct character as feelings. In this connection, they 
act more immediately on the executive powers, stimulating 
the effort necessary for their gratification, and checking any 
movement that gives rise to pain. Sensations, then, are in 
a double sense stimulative by their direct character as feel- 
ings, by their indicative character, revealing to the intellect 
the nature of the objects about it. It is, however, in the 
first aspect alone, that they can be divided, as feelings, into 
the three classes, stimulative, indicative and repressive. 
Those se;nsations are chiefly indicative which, in reference 
to pleasure or pain, are indifferent. Things inimical, de- 
termined chiefly by the eye and ear, are recognized in part 
by touch, and sometimes by taste and odor. This discrim- 
inative use of the senses is an acquired one, and very much 
apart from the purpose which they subserve with all as ave- 
nues of enjoyment. Thus their perceptive and sensitive 



238 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

uses show a tendency to separation and mutual exclusion, 
though this relation hardly admits of the definite statement 
given it by Hamilton, that sensation and perception are in 
inverse ratio to each other. The facts are not of so mea- 
surable and mathematical a character, are more vital and 
mixed than this assertion recognizes. 

§ 3. The sensations arising from the special senses glide 
easily into feelings of a distinct, yet of a less local and defin- 
ite character, as the sense of pressure, of heat, and cold, 
or of an electric current. These again pass readily into 
others which indicate the condition of an organ, as nausea, 
irritation of the eye, lassitude, and its opposite the impulse 
of a super-abundant nervous power. This class of feelings 
it is not easy to enumerate. Some of them approach in 
character very closely the special senses, while others appear 
but rarely, and subserve a very limited purpose. There is, 
perhaps, no organ, or portion of the human body, which 
may not become the seat of a peculiar feeling, more es- 
pecially a painful feeling, indicating difficulty, and demand- 
ing relief As a class, the sensations which disclose states, 
have more frequent reference to some repression or modi- 
fication of action, than to its excitation, and present them- 
selves under the form of suffering, instead of enjoyment. 
The reverse is, however, many times true. Buoyant life 
declares itself in physical impulses, at first obscure, but 
leading when fully developed to the intense pleasure of spor- 
tive action. Redundant power tends to explosive effect, 
and renders such exertion very enjoyable. 

Feelings which indicate states of the body or of its spe- 
cial organs, are for the most part present only as they tend 
directly to affect action, and through the will to secure 
either exertion, repression, or changed conditions. The 
feelings, or rather the nervous conditions that regulate in- 
voluntary action, do not usually come into consciousness. 
Respiration, in its safe and measured movement, is secured 



THE PHYSICAL FEELINGS. 239 

by nerves and muscles that act and react on each other 
automatically, with no direct cognition of the mind. ■ Let, 
however, some unusual state arise ; let the air be restricted, 
or become very impure, and distinct sensations follow, pro- 
voking in extreme cases the most violent exertion. The 
larger portion, then, of those sensations which spring from 
some unusual condition of our physical organs, are present 
to indicate a line of action ; at least, to compel inquiry, 
and set the reflective powers to the work of guidance and 
correction. Thus are the nature and limits of the physical, 
physiological laws under which we live declared to us ; the 
times of activity and repose, the forms and bounds of in- 
dulgence, and the necessity of remedial measures. As 
most diseases find their true remedy in some form of rest 
or of restraint, we see that the pains which indicate them 
are not only directly repressive of effort, but indirectly also 
through the increased advantage which rises from an appe- 
tite denied, from labor laid aside. On the other hand, the 
power to do begets corresponding eifort, and is rewarded 
with a pleasure which in turn stimulates the body through 
the mind, and tends to make the exertion nutritive of the 
faculties to which it belongs. We cannot go to the extent 
of the view presented by Bain, which makes pleasure and 
pain automatic, the one stimulating, the other arresting ac- 
tion, much like the opening and closing dampers of a 
steam-engine. Such direct effects they frequently have, 
but more often incite or correct action through the inter- 
vention of thought and volition. Indeed pain may momen- 
tarily quicken action, and pleasure may ultimately exhaust 
the strength, and so slacken effort. The sensations stand 
in too living, too complex a relation to our vital, intellectual 
and voluntary powers to submit easily all their relations to 
a single statement. Pleasure and pain alike exhaust pow- 
er, but the one with, the other without, compensation. An 
half-hour of intense suffering takes away not simply the 



240 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Strength — play would have done this in part — but leaves the 
nutritive powers depressed. The exertion of enjoyment, on 
the other hand, while expending the present store of power, 
re-acts favorably on the vital forces. Intense pleasure at 
its consummation trembles on the verge of pain, and in- 
tense pain, when not utterly exhaustive, passes back at its 
expiration into intense pleasure occasioned partly by 
contrast, and partly by the flowing in again of vital power 
to its normal channels. 

§ 4. A third distinct class of sensations is the appetites. 
These again are closely united to those indicative feelings 
which declare the condition of an organ. They differ 
from these only in being more special, returning with regu- 
larity, and performing a constant and fixed service in the 
animal economy. We started with the special senses, 
sources of definite, local feelings, serving a free purpose of 
pleasure and discrimination. We glided from these into 
general sensations, chiefly distinguishable from them in 
serving a less constant and independent purpose. We now 
pass to appetites, specialized and regularly returning feel- 
ings, revealing not the general condition of an organ, 
but demanding a specific act of gratification. Both in the 
special senses and appetites, there is a definiteness and 
constancy of purpose, not found in the intermediate sen- 
sations, as well as a source of ever returning pleasure, al- 
most independent of effort. Indeed, the appetite for food, 
as a means of enjoyment, so closely unites itself with taste 
and odor, as to yield with them a compound gratification 
incapable of practical analysis. An appetite is a returning 
.physical feeling, tending to some definite act or state of 
gratification. The return in most of the appetites is at 
measured intervals ; in others the spaces are more irregu- 
lar. According to this definition, the desire for sleep is an 
appetite. Hunger and thirst are impulses recurring more 
fixedly ; sexual appetite, one that is renewed less certainly. 



THE PHYSICAL FEELINGS. 24 1 

An appetite in "its first action, as yet neither gratified nor 
denied, is indicative : and indifferent as regards pleasure 
and pain. It is, indeed, the condition of the pleasure 
which is to arise from indulgence, but is itself hardly either 
a distinct enjoyment or a declared annoyance; One or 
other of these, however, it quickly becomes, according as 
its intimations are accepted or withstood. 

Different appetites may be suppressed and modified with 
very diff"erent degrees of success, according to the purpose 
they subserve in our physical constitution. One is as im- 
perative as the wants it indicates ; another is, in the posi- 
tion it holds, very much the product of intellectual and 
moral forces. The appetites are physical indications and 
guides of action, and, in their healthy indulgence, uniform- 
ly give pleasure ; in their denial, or excessive indulgence, 
as uniformly inflict pain. The pleasures and pains which 
accompany them are, carefully watched and collated, safe 
guides of action. They are, nevertheless, far from being 
sufficient, automatic forces, securing the results of physical 
well-being. While they are at first direct stimulants and 
immediate restraints, they are chiefly, in the human consti- 
tution, operative through a wise election and pursuit of 
pleasure, a sagacious avoidance of evil. The brute and the 
rational constitution seem to show an important distinction 
at this point ; the one is wholly automatic in the restraint 
and control of appetite ; the other leaves the checks chiefly 
to reason. 

The purposes served by our sensations are various, fre- 
quently co-existent, and always concurrent. Of this, the 
special senses, the appetites and the feelings which accom- 
pany the active powers, are examples. A large circle of en- 
joyments are through them added to our physical organ- 
ism, and a pleasurable life provided for. Immediately con- 
nected with this is a second purpose. A direct, physical 
stimulus is, through these feelings, administered to that nu 



24.2 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tritive and muscular action on which the well-being of the 
body depends. Pain abates, pleasure promotes effort. 
The one exhausts, the other stimulates, and, within cer- 
tain limits, helps to renew the strength by which it is fed. 

A third purpose of our sensations is found in the know- 
ledge, otherwise unattainable, which they impart of the state 
of the body, the conditions and demands of its several or-* 
gans. They thus become the basis of that reasoning by 
which we adjust action, food and remedial agents to our 
real wants ; make an intelligent provision, and lay down 
wise precepts, for our immediate and future well-being. A 
fourth and somewhat more remote ministration of our sen- 
sations is to general knowledge. Through them, we come 
in contact in a new way with surrounding objects, take cog- 
nizance of a different set of qualities, and thus make more 
complete and perfect our classifications. There is a tend- 
ency, in thus making our sensations means of intellectual 
discrimination, somewhat to abate their force and character 
as feelings. Of this, we have sufficiently spoken. While 
sensation and perception are often closely blended, any in- 
creased distinctness of the one, tends to abate the immediate 
power of the other. 

The relation of the physical feelings to health and activ- 
ity is easily seen. This relation does not explain the feel- 
ings themselves. Unimpeded activity is pleasurable, but 
the seat — the source of the pleasure, is found in an original 
conformation of the physical man ; as much so, we appre- 
hend, as the enjoyment of a fragrant rose in the peculiar 
power of the special sense of smell. We are not to sup- 
pose that we have explained either pleasure or pain by re- 
ferring them respectively to unrestrained, and to impeded 
activity. We are able to give some of the conditions, and 
some of the consequences of physical sensations, but their 
immediate causes in the organs themselves, we cannot give. 
The last and exhaustive analysis we cannot make. A feel- 



THE PHYSICAL FEELINGS. 243 

ing as a feeling is ultimately, and shall we not say, suflS 
ciently known in itself. 

Before passing to the intellectual feelings, we mark 
some border facts which prepare the way for the transition. 

Irritability, which is often a physical state, and may al- 
ways be more or less due to physical conditions, neverthe- 
less does very much to determine the degree and character 
of the conditions present to the mind. There are insep- 
arably mixed with their intellectual, provoking causes, im- 
mediate physical conditions, which often make them in de- 
gree, if not in kind, what they would not otherwise be. 

What are termed natural affections, are also examples of 
transition facts. We suppose these words strictly employed 
to designate feelings aroused by physical facts, physical 
ties ; not intellectually considered, but sensationally expe- 
rienced. It may be doubted, whether there are any such 
affections in man. If there are, they are so lost in the 
higher feelings stirred by the same facts intellectually con- 
sidered, that it is difficult to separate them. The animal 
is, for a time, passionately attached to its young. These 
affections seem to follow in a direct, physical way from 
the sensations present. The helplessness of the young ap- 
parently forms no ground of the emotion. The young of 
another animal may become the object of immediate and 
bitter attack. The substitution of another offspring for its 
own is successful only when the perceptive instincts of the 
parent are baffled and misled. Something of this direct 
attachment seems to appear in the human parent, though 
it is so overlaid and modified by feelings of a purely intellec- 
tual character, as to play no very important part in our 
constitution. Doubtless the tenderness of the mother does 
owe something of its quick, yearning, responsive action 
under the claims of the infant to the purely physical con- 
ditions of the relationship. 



244 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY 

CHAPTER 11. 

The Intellectual Feelings. 

§ I. The intellectual are distinguished from the physic- 
al feelings by the fact of their dependence on objects and re- 
lations presented to the mind, and thus, in a secondary way, 
influencing the emotions. The sharp thrust of a weapon, 
brings instantaneous pain ; the abuse of an enemy arouses 
anger only as it is understood, and mentally contemplated. 
These feelings may also be divided, as regards emotional 
character, into pleasurable, indifferent and painful ; and as 
regards their relation to action, into those which accom- 
pany success, those which indicate a line of action, and 
those occasioned by failure, absolute or relative, partial or 
complete, and by causes tending to produce failure. The 
last division may be briefly and inaccurately expressed, by 
the words feelings of gratification, of direction, and of dis- 
appointment. The second central class demands the 
earliest treatment, as the other two flow from it on either 
hand. This class is chiefly composed of the emotions 
known as the desires. These may be termed the appetites 
of the mind, as they express its appetences, its longings, its 
objects of pursuit. They have been usually spoken of as 
direct, native feelings. Herein there seems to be some 
confusion of ideas. If they were direct, unreasoning im- 
pulses, they could not fall into the second general class of 
feelings, to wit: those which have an intellectual basis. 
That they are not spontaneous, immediate impulses, a little 
thought will be sufficient to show. As universally stated, 
they are directed toward abstract ideas, not toward concrete 
objects ; they are desires of wealth, of power, of know- 
ledge, not for wampum, for the ability to bend a bow, or 
to calculate an eclipse. Now a desire directed in the out- 



THE INTELLECTUAL FEELINGS. 245 

set to a generalization, to an abstract quality, is an absurdity, 
since no such quality can be present to the mind except as 
the result of much comparison and many judgments. 
Neither should we avoid the difficulty by saying, that these 
desires fasten themselves with native, original force, on spe- 
cific objects under each of the categories of desire. There 
are no specific objects which draw forth universal desire, 
and which can stand as concrete types, or representations, 
of the notions of power, wealth, honor. Specific objects, 
powers, become points of interest and desire, according as 
they are able to gratify certain native appetites or tastes. 
Possession is a matter of interest to the child only as the 
thing claimed stands in some relation to its sports by which 
it is capable of promoting its enjoyment. 

Possession, without some connection with our pleasures, 
has no significance, either in early or later life. A square 
mile of territory on the frozen continent of the Antarctic 
ocean, has no power to awaken desire in any man. Now this 
discerning of the relation of things to our appetites, our ac- 
tive powers, our tastes, which makes them valuable, is an 
intellectual activity, receiving constant expansion as we 
grow older, and leading us to attach importance to the 
ownership of an increasing variety of things. The ignor- 
ant man cares not for a book, except as he can sell it ; be- 
cause the mental conditions which make possession impor- 
tant to him, have not been met. 

Our desires, then, are secondary feelings uniformly evoked 
by the perceived relations of objects, of positive action to 
our primary, native feelings ; our appetites below, and our 
tastes above. Without either the lower region of animal 
tendencies, or the higher region of spiritual impulses, de- 
sires would not exist ; because those objects now included 
under the term wealth, or those possessions known as 
knowledge, would have no value, having no power to min- 
ister to our pleasure. The statement has been made only 



246 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

on the positive side ; of course we include the correspond- 
ing negative considerations. Objects may excite desire, 
because they enable us to escape pain. An action, how- 
ever, which stands in no relation to either pain or pleasure, 
must be one to which we are wholly indifferent. 

We have, then, no occasion to suppose, indeed no in- 
telligible grounds for supposing, the presence of native de- 
sires in our constitution for certain abstract qualities, or for 
abstract qualities under a concrete form ; because first, the 
relation of wealth, power, knowledge, to our happiness is 
a sufficient explanation of our desire for them ; because, 
second, these desires come and go with this relation — the 
miser even not being able to prize that which cannot, un- 
der any conditions, be sold ; and third, because there is a 
difficulty in supposing generalizations arrived at by much 
reflection and constantly expanding, the direct object of a 
simple, primitive feeling. 

The very notion and definition of a primitive feeling is 
rather the immediate action of some object or intuition on 
the emotional constitution. The secondary relation to our 
well-being, which things disclose through the intellect, are 
grounds of our secondary feelings. 

In classifying the desires, we are then classifying the ob- 
jects which draw them forth. Desire is an emotion essen- 
tially of the same character, whatever that be to which it 
attaches. The mind does not remain indifferent to those 
things and states which it sees to concern its enjoyments. 
This fact inspires a feeling towards them which we term de- 
sire. A desire is the inclination of the mind toward things 
which it sees to be the direct or indirect sources of plea- 
sure. It rests back as a secondary feeling on those pri- 
mary sensibilities to which the external world directly min- 
isters. Now the variety of objects which gratify man, and 
the variety of their separate ministrations are so great, that 
it is not easy to give an exhaustive classification of them. 



THE INTELLECTUAL FEELINGS. 247 

Those general words which divide, yet include the most of 
the things pursued by man, are wealth, power, honor, 
knowledge and virtue. They do not cover the entire 
ground. It is accurate, if not fitting language to say, I de- 
sire revenge. The heart also yearns for objects of affection, 
and that it itself should be made an object of love. When 
suffering pain, we desire its removal ; when fearing pun- 
ishment, we desire escape. Many of our secondary and 
more transient inclinations, are not included in these gen- 
eralizations of the objects of pursuit. 

The desire of happiness is sometimes added to the list. 
The objection to this, is, that this desire is a still broader 
generalization, including all the others. This desire em- 
braces all our desires, is the utmost stretch of analysis and 
abstraction. Admit this, and there is no opportunity for 
farther division, classification, — all impulses are grouped 
under one general impulse common to each. The desire 
for existence is a secondary desire, dependent for its force 
on those other desires which make life pleasurable, valu- 
able. To these secondary desires, there is no limit, as in- 
numerable things may, at least for a moment, stand in the 
relation of means to the ends we are pursuing. 

We regard desire, as a feeling, indifferent ; neither plea- 
surable nor painful, at least in its earlier forms. When 
nourished into full strength, it may assume a more positive 
character. A desire for wealth, that is, as yet, neither grat- 
ified nor balked, while it becomes an immediate ground 
of pleasurable activity, while it gives direction and consort 
to the feelings, can hardly of itself be called distinctly pain- 
ful or pleasurable. This is seen in the ease with which de- 
sire passes into pain or pleasure with any increase or de- 
crease of the obstacles to its gratification. In the ordinary 
familiar balance of effort and reward, desire guides rather 
than vexes or excites us. When it produces pleasure, it is 
rather by the activity it inspires, the hopes it enkindles, 



248 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

than by its own nature as an impulse : when it provokes 
suffering, it does so by the unusual obstacles it encounters, 
by the disappointment of fruitless effort. A pure desire 
seems to be as simply indicative as any feeling can well be, 
to make way for the current of emotions that is sure to 
rush along in its trail. 

The desires have different degrees of strength according 
'to the minds in which they arise, and the objects toward 
which they are directed. The desire for wealth passes with 
a few into a passion, and becomes the most exacting of im- 
pulses, while, with others, it is so gentle an incentive as to 
control but few of their actions. Herein, again, is seen its se- 
condary character. The mind that habitually forecasts the 
future, that brings coming enjoyments into clear contrast with 
immediate pleasures, is one in which the desires show their 
full strength. The conditions of their activity are fully met, 
and they soon come to rule with undisputed sway. One, 
however, in whom the primary appetites are exacting, and 
the reflective powers feeble, renders but wayward and inter- 
mittent obedience to the desires, and leaves the events of 
life to be fashioned by the objects in most immediate con- 
nection with the sensibilities. 

The strength of desires also depends on the nature of the 
objects sought, — a farther result of their secondarv- charac- 
acter. The pursuit of wealth, of power, of honor, may, in 
rare instances, settle down into an exorbitant passion in 
minds in which the lower circle of vigorous, primitive sen- 
sibilities, is united with moderate reflective faculties, fur- 
nishing a clear, yet, nevertheless limited horizon of effort. 
In many cases these desires are relaxed by the disappoint- 
ments which attend upon them, or the unsatisfactory nature 
of the results when realized. The desire for wealth is like- 
ly, under the force of habit, under the momentum of the 
mind, to pass into the blind passion of avarice, or to suffer 
abatement from the limited character of the good, wealth 



THE INTELLECTUAL FEELINGS. 249 

can confer. The desires for knowledge, for virtue, on the 
other hand, grow under success with a normal, a rational 
growth. Each acquisition is a stimulus to farther acquisi- 
tion, and the satisfaction of possession increases every mo- 
ment with possession. The mind more and more justifies 
its choice to itself, and congratulates itself on that which it 
has accomplished. The desire for ^weaith is like a stream* 
that at length finds a precipice so high that in its leap it is 
lost in air, dissolved again in mist, and never resumes a 
peaceful flow ; while the love of knowledge and virtue, 
more tranquil currents, swell in volume, and roll on increas- 
ing waters to the ocean. 

§ 2. On either hand, the desires give rise to a large 
class of feelings dependent upon them. We will speak first 
of those pleasurable ones which accompany success, and 
thus stimulate eff'ort. Immediately consequent on a state 
of desire, inevitably incident to it, are the feelings of hope 
and joy in view of the prospect of obtaining the object 
sought. Indeed, hope is resolved, in analysis, into the 
feeling desire, and the intellectual condition, expectation. 
We would rather regard these as the occasion of the emo- 
tion than the very emotion, hope. Joy accompanies success, 
and passes through various stages, lying between tranquil 
satisfaction and triumphant exaltation. These feelings 
spring immediately from a free flow of the activities called 
forth by a successful desire, and in turn, greatly quicken 
their action. The emotional state thus becomes instantly 
complex, consisting of the immediate effect of anticipated 
pleasures, and the realized pleasure of fully employed pow- 
ers. This has always been regarded as one of the most un- 
alloyed forms of enjoyment — that evoked by the grasp of 
coming good by the mind as a certainty, together with 
the high exercise of its own faculties in securing it. The 
stimulated powers and feelings, not only yield the delight 
of successful action, but the imagination makes the most 



250 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

of the pleasure promised, and overlooks utterly the vexations 
and disappointments which too frequently embitter the ac- 
tual enjoyment of it This concurrence of the practical and 
imaginative faculties, leads to an exalted state of feeling, es- 
pecially when neither experience has sobered, nor age made 
sluggish, the emotions. 

A second class of pleasurable feeling arises in view of the 
relation of others to our success, our gratified desires. We 
are grateful to those who have aided us. We are sympa- 
thetically attached to those who share our triumphs, who 
enjoy our pleasures with us. Our feelings are made 
deeper, hence more pleasurable, by the impulse of kin- 
dred feelings in them. Emotional states, like electric con- 
ditions, intensify each other, and a movement once estab- 
lished tends to complete itself in part by the reflex in- 
fluence of one mind on another. The love and compla- 
cency begotten by success are as manifest as the impatience 
and vexation that spring from failure. The moment of 
achievement, of gratification, is usually seized upon as 
propitious to those who seek either forgiveness or favor. 
The degree of this satisfaction in others depends on the 
intimacy of their relations to our success, but extends it- 
self often in a feeble form to indifferent parties. It is ex- 
pressed under various words according to its character and 
degree, as gratitude, good-will, good-fellowship, love, affec- 
tion, attachment. 

A third class of pleasurable feeling, comes from the 
connection of effort and success with ourselves. They are 
vanity, pride. These emotions are most influential over 
action, and constitute a large part of its reward. Vanity, 
the pleasure which the mind receives from the admiration, 
the favorable notice of others, exists with various conditions, 
and under very different degrees of intensity. In its mod- 
erate forms, it is a quiet incentive, and only becomes ill- 
grounded and foolish, when it leads to a neglect of real 



THE INTELLECTUAL FEELINGS. 25 1 

excellence and solid attainments, in favor of popular pow- 
er and showy acquisitions. Within its legitimate sphere, 
it closely unites itself with that desire for the good opinion 
of others which the good man may well cherish. There 
are few feelings which sustain the inferior desires, as those 
for wealth and position, as constantly and eifectively as this 
of vanity. Wealth owes its attractions, with most, to its 
ability to captivate and dazzle the public eye, to open gap- 
ing mouths, and bewilder feeble wits. 

Pride arises from the same good opinion of one's self, 
and one's possessions, that characterize vanity. It is how- 
ever accompanied with more independence of character, and 
does not, therefore, find its gratification so much in the ad- 
miration of others, as in its own admiration. Vanity loves 
parade, delights in the flow of popular sentiment, floats its 
gay shallop on the good opinion of others, and is stranded 
when public favor, like a shallow stream, is lost on some 
sand-bar. Pride, in its high opinion of itself, despises 
others, receives indifferently or contemptuously their ad- 
miration, and, like an ocean vessel, rides solitary on the 
heaving tide of its own conceit. Like vanity, it has a legi- 
timate form. As just self-esteem, it furnishes strength and 
independence to character. It accompanies more frequently 
the second grade of desires, as those of power and 
knowledge. The food which the accomplishment of our 
desires affords to our own good opinion of ourselves, and 
our love of the admiration of others, is one of the most 
constant and certain, most secret and sweet, of the plea- 
sures of success. In a modified form, these feelings enter 
r into our highest moral sentiments. The various words by 
which we designate these feelings, derive their meanings in 
part from the different degrees of the same emotions, and 
in part from the supposed justice, or fitness, with which the 
feeling is entertained. Conceit, self-conceit, assumption, 
self-complacence, indicate a vanity or pride in advance of 



252 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the grounds for it in our powers or possessions. Indeed, 
the words vanity and pride are also more commonly used 
to mark these excesses of feeling, than restrained and 
praiseworthy forms. Self-confidence, self-respect, personal 
pride designate the more measured and well-founded phases 
of these emotions. 

§ 3. The feelings which accompany the failure of desire 
correspond to the opposite classes, but are more intense 
and more varied. Those which follow directly from the 
prospect of failure, or from failure itself, are fear, discour- 
agements, disappointment, despair, all tending to repress 
effort, and to make the eifort that is put forth peculiarly ex- 
haustive. That the activity of the mind is an independent 
source of strength, is necessary to the highest, most successful 
development of purely physical strength, is indicated by the 
very different physical results which accompany efforts alike 
in intensity, but unlike in the satisfaction which accompan- 
ies them. Hope gives strength, discouragement at once 
takes it away. As physical life is an independent stimulus 
to the mind, so mental life is an independent stimulus to 
the body. 

The second class of painful feelings, those excited to- 
ward others by opposition and failure, is especially full and 
varied. Envy, jealousy, dislike, antipathy, resentment, 
anger, hatred, malice, rage, revenge, are some of the 
words which express varied phases and stages of feeling, 
exasperated by the indirect or direct interference of others, 
by an opposition of attitude, or character, or effort. Envy 
and jealousy arise from the designed or undesigned dis- 
placing of ourselves in position, or in affection by others. 
They do not necessarily imply any fault on the part of their 
object, but merely an entrance upon ground we had coveted 
for ourselves. When this entrance is an intrusion, the 
feelings are proportionately more bitter. Antipathy, dislike, 
express the results of a sense of opposition in character 



THE INTELLECTUAL FEELINGS. 253 

which prepares us for opposition in action, and provokes 
in a milder form, by anticipation, feelings of repulsion. 

Resentment, anger, hatred, malice, rage, revenge, mark 
the more violent outbursts of feeling toward those who di- 
rectly thwart our efforts, who stand astride the path of our 
desires. These feelings, in their extreme form, so blind the 
reason as to become almost indiscriminate in their action ; 
as to lead it to give vent to the pent-up passion on the first 
object that offers. The mind like an electric battery, 
charged to the full by the irritation and friction of chafing 
events, is ready to launch a bolt at the nearest point, to 
blast and splinter in mere wantonness of wrath. 

It may be doubted, perhaps, whether these feelings of re- 
sentment are not in part pleasurable. As simple emotions 
we think not. They give rise, however, to secondary de- 
sires, desires of retaliation and revenge, and in the gratifi- 
cation of these we experience pleasure. Language recog- 
nizes this in such an expression. The sweetness of revenge. 
These feelings may also be blended with moral sentiments 
of indignation, and thus their true character be somewhat 
disguised. 

Some have regarded it as a reflection on our constitution, 
that we should be capable of malevolent feelings. This 
perhaps it might be, if they were necessary, primary emo- 
tions, if, like the appetites, they found direct, inevitable ex- 
pression. As secondary feelings, however, they depend for 
their character on the character of the person who enter- 
tains them. They arise under the general possibility of 
transgression, of wrong desires wrongly pursued, and thus ' 
are involved in the general problem of sin, and admit of 
the same remedy that transgression itself suffers. Right 
desires, in their method and measure right, may be attended 
only with right feelings. The holy will may ultimately 
reach to the correction of these products of the violent, the 
unsubmissive, the selfish will. 



254 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

The last class of unpleasant feelings, arising from the re- 
lation to ourselves of baffled desire, is limited. They are 
certain forms of shame and humility. We are humbled by 
failure ; we are ashamed of the ill success which has fol- 
lowed our efforts. These emotions are disagreeable, and 
may become excessive, permanently weakening the incen- 
tives to effort. Humility and shame find their fullest play 
in the moral field. Like some of the other intellectual 
feelings, they are mere adumbrations of fuller emotions 
called forth by moral relations. It is the feelings now indi- 
cated in this second great class, resting primarily on self- 
interest, and especially liable to excess, that are termed pas- 
sions. These emotions are frequently so strong that we 
suffer from them, that we seem to be their passive, afflicted 
subjects, rather than their responsible sources. 

§ 4. A second limited class of intellectual feelings do 
not depend so immediately on the interest of the person en- 
tertaining them. These, like humility and shame, are 
chiefly anticipatory of the much fuller development of pure- 
ly spiritual impulses. They are admiration, contempt, 
good-will, compassion. The highest, the chief object of 
admiration is character; though simple power, physical or in- 
tellectual, may draw forth the feeling. This emotion in- 
clines to the class of pleasurable feelings, and this, we think, 
in proportion as it opens a line of emulative action. Won- 
derful powers shown in fields of effort entirely foreign to 
our own labors, by no means bestow, in the admiration 
they elicit, the same pleasure as do like triumphs in the fa- 
miliar paths of our daily exertions. According, then, as 
^admiration carries us from the mid-way point of indifference 
into successful effort, does the pleasure become declared 
and intense even. Let the feeling, by a contrast with our 
own weakness, discourage us, and it is painful rather than 
pleasant. 

Contempt, on the other hand, tends to dissuade from 



THE INTELLECTUAL FEELINGS. 2 5 J 

effort, is admonitory rather than persuasive, closes rather than 
opens paths for exertion. It is a painful emotion, except so 
far as, inflaming self-conceit, it finds, in the failure of others, 
the food of pride. A low, disparaging estimate of the pow- 
ers of men, giving birth to contempt spiced with misanthro- 
py, will, unless relieved by a marked exception in our own 
favor, depress action and enjoyment. Each newly discov- 
ered case of weakness increases the bitterness of the heart. 
This feeling slowly over-clouds the sky, and leaves the 
soul in a chill, benumbing, disheartening atmosphere, 
rendering it incapable of pleasure, and indisposing it to the 
effort by which the spell might be cast off. The contemp- 
tuous man takes home as guests, sarcasm, satire, unbelief, 
aversion. He abides in their companionship, lies down 
and rises with them, and suffers their corrosive breath to tar- 
nish the brightness of every object. Contempt is the rust 
of the soul, which eats it up with increasing pain. Nothing 
can be intrinsically more diverse, or more diverse in their ef- 
fects, than that intellectual contempt which feeds on the 
weakness of men, and that moral sentiment which scorns a 
mean action. The one is the recoil of the soul upward : 
the other, its gravitation downward, its cynical unbelief in 
goodness, its despair of strength. 

Good-will and compassion are but feeble sentiments 
when disjoined from the moral nature. They are still 
pleasurable, still indices of action, impulses to a little de- 
sultory effort, but rarely have a deeper foundation than that 
of sympathy, which feebly transfers to us another's feelings; 
and plays but a secondary part among those towering and 
dominant passions which drink up the life of the soul. 
They are remote reflections, faint types of those strong af- 
fections, those profound sympathies which give to the higher, 
the moral nature its compass and power, which enable it 
successfully to confront the appetites and passions, out- 
weighing the good they offer with a greater good. 



256 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

§ 5. There are certain general conditions, by which the 
strength of the intellectual feelings is often strikingly affect- 
ed. Novelty not only enhances the feelings appropriate to 
the occasion, it gives rise to a new feeling termed wonder. 
This is indeed a very vague and evanescent excitement, ex- 
cept as it directs inquiry and guides effort. It sounds the 
tocsin, sometimes of alarm, always of attention, to the ' 
mind, puts its faculties on the alert, and imparts pleasure 
according to the nature of the effort drawn forth. Wonder, 
therefore, is both a separate feeling, and also a condition on 
which the activity of the emotions often depends. The 
new is impressed upon us by our very constitution with a 
peculiar force, a distinct wave of sensibility, and is thus en- 
abled to initiate a rapid, tidal flow of feeling, not otherwise 
possible. In early, and in uncultivated life, that which is 
novel is sought for its immediate emotional character. The 
grotesque, the odd, the extravagant, the new, the news, 
give fresh excitement, and the intrinsic value or worthless- 
ness of the matter offered to the mind is overlooked. 
When the powers are more mature or more cultivated, 
wonder becomes a secondary, a briefly initiatory impulse, 
making way for the deeper satisfaction of recognized truth. 
When wonder fails to yield this pleasure, it drops away al- 
most at once. 

A second condition on which the degree of emotional 
activity depends, is harmony. Certain views and s ates 
unite easily, flow together and strengthen each other. 
Others stand in the opposite relation, and exist by mutual 
exclusion. Harmony is consistent with contrast. Indeed, 
this is one of the ways in which impressions are deepened 
and made complete. The intellectual view is made clear 
and decided by uniting like with like, and opposing like 
to unlike — by agreement and by contrast. The latter is 
often the more effective of the two methods of deepening 
an impression. Harmony, as a cojidition of feeling, in- 



THE INTELLECTUAL FEELINGS. 257 

eludes the presence of what is concordant, and excludes 
objects discordant, lying in different parts of the intellectual 
and emotional field. It is opposed to distraction, to di- 
verse emotions, and thus divided effects, 

A third ground of increased feeling, is sympathy. A 
certain contagious force belongs to emotion. The swell of 
sentiment among masses, like the surge of the ocean, is 
heavy, forceful, dominant. It is difficult to maintain feel- 
ings which are not shared by those about us ; it is difficult 
to escape the influence of those which are prevalent. The 
minds of men flow into each other, and come to feel and 
propagate, with increasing power, the same influences. 
Sympathy, strictly so called, does not change the character 
of a sentiment, it only disseminates it. The inflammable 
nature of the feelings by which assemblies, mobs, armies 
are laid open to conflagration, each firing his neighbor, till 
all are caught up in one uncontrollable frenzy, is a very 
familiar fact. 

A fourth condition on which the immediate force of tha 
feelings depends, is association. This word covers most of 
the results of previous action on present intellectual states. 
It is what habit, indulgence are to the bodily appetites. 
Our feelings become grouped in memory by repeated ex- 
perience, and on each recurrence, restore by suggestive 
power a large class of emotions and incentives with which 
they have previoustly consorted. Like feeUngs are thus 
sorted and consolidated into varied, powerful classes, 
which work together on the mind, one never arising alone, 
but uniformly having present for its aid, some of its famil- 
,iar companions. We shall not understand the force of 
certain passions without comprehending the multiplied 
echoes which they find in the soul. We shall return to 
this point in a subsequent chapter. 

The animation of the feelings is also frequently depend- 
ent on the power of imagination. Our intellectual emo- 



258 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tions arise in connection with sensible objects, and the 
vividness with which these are present to the mind, will de- 
termine the degree of action in the accompanying sensi- 
bilities. The passionate and the poetic temperament are 
influenced by the images of the fancy. The clear and 
vivid pictures of the imagination arrest the attention, and 
arouse the passions, till they come baying along the trail of 
indulgence, like hounds in full sight. 

The nature, character, and excitability of the emotions 
are diverse, but their activity at any one time depends, 
aside from direct influences, on these mental conditions. 
Arising out of intellectnal action, they are especially affected 
by the circumstances and conditions of that action. While 
the pleasurable feelings are evolved, for the most part, in 
connection with successful activity, and the painful ones in 
connection with baffled effort, we are not to suppose that 
this fact explains their very nature, or identifies action with 
enjoyment. It only indicates the relation of our emotions 
to the ends of life, but leaves them each to be understood 
in its simple, intrinsic character by experience. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Spiritual Feelings. 

§ I. The spiritual feelings are so called because they be- 
long peculiarly to our higher nature. Intellectual action 
is spiritual action ; yet that which gives guidance and gov- 
ernment to our interior, hidden life, is found in our intui- 
tions. The intellect is instrumental under these; as, in the 
brute, it is simply a means to physical safety and gratifica- 
tion. Our spiritual feelings spring up, then, in direct con- 



THE SPIRITUAL FEELINGS. 259 

nection with our intuitions ; those mental elements which 
make our life truly rational, which give to us a choice of 
ends, and liberty in the pursuit of them. The only in- 
tuitions which draw forth directly feeling, are those of 
truth, beauty and right. There is in the emotions con- 
nected with these regulative ideas, the action of the intellect, 
yet an action different from that presented by the last class 
of feelings. In these, it was the observed relation of 
things to our enjoyments, which was the ground of desire, 
with the attendant sensibilities. The mental action inter- 
vened between the remote appetites, taste, passion, and 
pointed out the means of gratification, and called forth a 
variety of emotions in prosecuting the labor presented. 
In the present case, the intellectual action precedes the in- 
tuition. Patient inquiry reveals the grounds of belief, the 
truth : a careful discrimination of qualities, of the symbols 
of expression, of complex relations, discloses the condi- 
tions of beauty : a thorough inquiry into the nature and 
results of action, its reflex and progressive effects, lay open 
its true character, and then the intuitive faculty comes in to 
complete and seal the work in the discernment of a new and a 
distinct quality — that of right. The proposition is said to be 
true, the statue is felt to be beautiful, the action is pronounced 
right, and forthwith there arise sentiments which find their 
spring in these ideas. These are the spiritual feelings. 
Their final, their immediate dependence is on the mind's 
intuitive action ; their secondary dependence, on our in- 
tellectual faculties. Our intellectual feelings, on the other 
hand, find their immediate source in mental action, in the 
conclusions of experience, and their ultimate ground in the 
appetites and tastes. 

These feelings again are open to the same division into 
pleasurable, indifferent and painful emotions. This, as 
regards happiness, a chief and intimate relation of the feel- 
ings, must necessarily be the fundamental distinction of all 



26o PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the emotions. Their relation to action may be said to be 
secondary to their relation to enjoyment, since action itself 
is undertaken or withheld in view of its immediate or ulti- 
mate eifects on the sensibilities. The feelings can only be 
classified by their external relations, since, intrinsically, they 
are all diverse, all simple original states, known in expe- 
rience only. Of the external relations of the feelings, this 
relation to happiness is most essential, while that to action 
comes next in order, both as indicating an immediate pur- 
pose served by our sensibilities, and their secondary effects 
on our character and well-being. In their connection with 
action, the spiritual feelings -•assume a more imperative 
character than either of the other two classes. In them, 
they followed on to stimulate and gratify effort, or check 
and discourage it ; here, they go before it as well to com- 
mand as to forbid action. They cease merely to allure, 
and seek decisively to enjoin and prohibit different lines of 
conduct. The middle ground of indication seems nar- 
rowed to a point, and to be pressed closely on either hand 
by dissuasives and persuasives. The spiritual sentiments 
may be divided into those of persuasion and dissuasion. 
Their voice is always one of authority, though its authority 
need not be felt, so long as it is kindly and cheerfully accepted. 
Actual or contemplated resistance provokes a class of penal 
sensibilities ; and obedience elicits feelings that have the 
positive character of approval and reward. 

The weakest of these sentiments, and those therefore 
which least well represent the class, are the somewhat in- 
tangible, rare, and uncertain sensibilities which accompany 
Tthe discovery, the recognition of the truth as truth. Truth 
is not a separate, regulative idea. It is included in that of 
resemblance. It is the intrinsic agreement of a propo- 
sition with the facts which it states. Much the majority 
of truths are received as truths with no emotion. Most 
of them are matters of interest only as they affect action. 



THE SPIRITUAL FEELINGS. 26 1 

— only in their relation to our desires, indicating success or 
failure, or revealing the line of conduct to be pursued. 
Truths, for the most part, are means possessed of no in- 
herent, emotional force beyond their relation to ends. 

This negative character of truth seems sometimes to dis- 
appear, and truth as truth to inspire a certain enthusiasm 
of mind, by which we feel that this is indeed the food of 
our spiritual nature. We may breathe the air ordinarily 
without thought, or sensible pleasure. Occasionally, we 
find it peculiarly invigorating ; we inhale great draughts, 
and bring our whole physical being into a more conscious 
and exalted state. Thus is it with the truth, — the daily 
breath of our intellectual life. We ordinarily overlook it ; 
at rare intervals we, in deep inspiration, feel its pervasive 
and subtle power, and rejoice in its possession. We travel 
along the valley, scarcely observing the objects about us, 
with no elation of feeling ; we pass some crowning sum- 
mit, take in a wider range, and the before concealed wave of 
emotion becomes sensible to us ; we are lifted on its pass- 
ing billow, as if a breath from another world had stolen 
suddenly across our path. 

This is the kind of emotion to which we draw attention, 
— the enthusiasm sometimes felt in truth, more especially 
in those fundamental, far-reaching truths which seem to 
suddenly lift the veil of phenomena, of varied colors, and 
to disclose to us the frame-work of the universe ; the pur- 
poses which are running through it, and bearing it to its 
goal. This on-going of a divine plan, when recognized, 
startles and inspires the mind, lifts truth out of its daily, dry, 
• instrumental ministrations, and gives us the sense of a new 
inheritance and possession in a universe whose conception 
we can thus lay hold of, whose secrets we can thus pene- 
trate, whose wisdom and love we can thus interpret and 
feel. I care not how little, or how much of this sentiment 
we may have felt, how far it may be thought to be confined 



262 " PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

to the more poetic and penetrative temperaments ; it is suf- 
ficient to draw attention to it as an enthusiasm for truth oc- 
casionally felt and avowed, finding expression in the collec- 
tive use of the word truth, the truth, the truths, as if a cer- 
tain concealed link and deep unity were to be found in all 
facts. We do this, too, in the face of those detestable facts, 
truths, which sin is forcing constantly upon our notice, as if 
after all, there were some profound fellowship, some one 
exaltation in all truths, rendering them the truth. 

This sensibility to the truth, be it more or less clear, be 
it more or less deep, inspires pursuit, leads to faith in a 
profound, unfolding plan, and quickens the mind to dis- 
cover the corrective laws, the compensatory statements for 
the defects and transgressions which lie on the surface of 
the world. This sentiment opens up a line of eff"ort, in- 
spires enthusiasm, sends faith in advance of reason, and 
rejoices in the slow displacement of accredited by appre- 
hended facts, of statement by disclosure, of trust by sight, 
of intuitive belief by the light of comprehensive princi- 
ples. It is little more than the exaltation and joy of our 
spiritual faculties as they enter on, and begin to occupy 
their inheritance — an inheritance which we are pleased to 
call that of eternal truth, though on the shifting surface of 
changing events, everything seems most transitory — of 
blessed truth, though most horrible and terrible facts are 
daily evolved before our eyes. Yes, the sense and the reve- 
lation of deep principles that undergird the world with 
abiding strength, and gather it up in the embrace of an ex- 
alted, a blessed purpose, are with us ; steal in upon us in 
our exaltation, and yield the repose which a belief in its 
ultimate triumph inspires. There is inlocked in our lan- 
guage and our nature, a belief in truth, central, adaman- 
tine, giving safe, benignant support to the universe of 
God. 

In like manner, we carry over to the false, the untrue, a 



THE SPIRITUAL FEELINGS. 263 

farther concentration of opposition and rejection in the 
word falsehood. We personify it as a distinct principle or 
power of mischief, believe in its weakness, and rejoice in 
in its ultimate overthrow. No matter what may have been 
their character, few of any party have ever espoused false- 
hood as such, few have not felt that the confession of it 
would be the admission of uliimate failure. We recognize 
the vague way in which these words, truth and falsehood, 
are frequently used ; yet, nevertheless, we claim that 
there is in this tendency of the mind to recognize the inher- 
ent opposition of the true and the false, the ultimate, ne- 
cessary victory of the one over the other — a latent belief in 
fundamental principles and forces, which it is the vain, tem- 
porary effort of falsehood to cover up and counter-work. 
This embrace of the real, as ultimately involving the ideal, 
and to pass in evolution from excellence to excellence, is 
the fruit of the mind's discovery of truth and error, its 
hearty acceptance of the one and the rejection of the other ; 
its satisfaction in the eternal plan of God. 

§ 2. The next group of intuitive feelings, though of a 
more manifest character, and more prevalent, has yet much 
of the same subtlety, the same choice of persons and times. 
Indeed, these are features of the whole class of emotions 
of which we are speaking. It has, doubtless, been one 
reason of the difficulty with which the spiritual feelings and 
the intuitive ideas, on which they are immediately depend- 
ent, have been recognized — that they are not, like the phy- 
sical feeling, universally present with approximately equal 
power, but in many scarcely seem to exist at all, and in 
their full intense forms to be confined to comparatively few. 
Yet the reason of this is obvious. They are each of them 
dependent on previous culture, on a faithful, special, dis- 
criminating action of the understanding. The beauty of 
the world is not seen, or at least is but very partially and 
inadequately seen, without an inquiry into its structure and 



264 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

relations, without a discernment of the thought, exquisite 
perfection of idea and workmanship involved in it No 
more is the right understood without a broad survey of 
conduct, the tracing of actions to their consequences; without 
rising above the immediate current of the stream, to see 
whence and whither its flow. The intuitive feelings, there- 
fore, can only be strong and clear in the more penetrative 
and reflective minds. They do not thereby cease to be uni- 
versal or characteristic when their appropriate conditions 
are met. 

The esthetical emotions arise solely under the previous 
action of mind. Disorder, absolute and complete, can 
furnish no beauty, nothing to be admired, nothing intrin- 
sically to be delighted in. Order, arrangement, is the first 
step toward beauty, is the first simplest product of taste. 
But this order is the product of thought. This arrangement 
will present itself as beautiful in proportion to the number 
and variety of the ends it meets, and the ease and accuracy 
with which these separate purposes are fulfilled. A little 
formal order imposed by mere utility, simple convenience 
in the classification of material, is not sufficient, or suffi- 
ciently significant to excite and to satisfy the taste. It is 
not t.ll more feeling enters into our plan, more variety, 
skill and precision of adjustment, that the elements of 
beauty begin to be clearly revealed, and the mind takes an 
additional delight in the work, aside from each and all of 
the ends subserved by it. Gardening, architecture, music, 
are the arts least imitative, — the arts in which the beauty 
present is most immediately the result of the combining 
power of the human mind. In each of these, mere order 
produces scarcely a sensible effect. It is not till the plan 
discovers high appreciation of the resources at the disposal 
of the artist, and great power and pleasure in combining 
and developing them — not till the product becomes thor- 
oughly emotional, and in its scope and variety betrays a 



THE SPIRITUAL FEELINGS. 265 

mind and heart alike active, that it begins in turn to com- 
mand our emotion, and impress us, as the case may be, 
with the grace, symmetry, harmony, force of the concep- 
tion. 

Here, then, beauty throws us into appreciative sympathy 
with the thoughts and feelings of a worker ; of one who exe- 
cutes well and powerfully, and delights in such execution 
— one with whom perfection is a thing esteemed, sought 
after, and includes far more than the immediate subordin- 
ation of the means employed to a useful, physical end. 
It is this effort of the mind, without neglecting utility, to lift 
each of its works out of the mere routine of labor, off 
from the simple plain of service into an emotional region, 
— to make it in its excellence, in its skillful or affectionate 
or grand handling, a source of independent, superior, 
constant pleasure, that is the source of beauty, and of its 
command over the heart. Not merely work, or good 
work, but superior, expressive, emotional work is its aim. 
The esthetical feelings cause us to delight in such labor, 
and to go, as far as may be, to every undertaking crowned 
with garlands. 

If we pass to the beauties of nature, equally do we find 
that it is thought, aptness of arrangement, skill of work- 
manship, labor performed with infinite love and faithful- 
ness, that arrest the mind and gratify the heart. In pro- 
portion as many adaptations, many powers are gathered in- 
to a brief compass, and with a perfect finish and relation 
of parts united in one organic whole, are we climbing with 
slow gradations, with a thousand steps of varied progress 
from the lowest life to the highest, from the plant to man, 
delighted with the goodness of the thought, the kind and 
abundant ministration of the faculties to the well-being 
and excellence of the final product. In each advance of 
beauty, there is more expression, because there is more and 
more perfect, and more and more beneficent labor, till, in 



266- PRIN'CIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

man, we find the highest condensation of power and re- 
gard, service, conipactness, symmetry, finish, in their most 
perfect forms. 

Everywhere, then, it is the labor of mind and heart, the 
births of thought and fecUng, the rational products of high 
intelligence and love, that arouse the sensibility of beauty; 
and we are so constituted that we are not, cannot, be in- 
different to these qualities when perceived by us. A cold, 
intellectual apprehension does not exhaust them. They 
elicit a certain regard, assume a certain prominence of po- 
sition, which we designate as beauty, and the pleasures of 
beauty. Such enjoyment on our part is a crowning sym- 
pathy with excellence ; such perception, an additional in- 
centive to high attainment. They are the thirst of an aspir- 
ing spirit for that which is beyond, which is above, for that 
which it knows it can grasp and enjoy. They take all 
barrenness, all deadness from simple intellectual move- 
ment, breathe through it desire, cause it to draw back 
the curtain between us and the ideal world, and fire us 
with the zeal of pursuit. 

While the specific character of esthetical emotions is 
very pronounced, their minor differences are very great. 
The same fruits have not all the same flavor. The most 
exquisite and characteristic tastes complete the circle, with 
an endless division and change of quality. In works of 
nature, plants, trees, landscapes, birds, beasts, men ; in 
works of art, painting, statues, poems ; in varied ob- 
jects, and in their yet more varied combinations, we find a 
constant change of predominant qualities, endless degrees 
of power, and ever shifting methods of expression. Hence 
arises in esthetical sentiments every shade of form and 
force, from impressions scarcely perceptible to those which 
wholly occupy the soul — overpowering emotions breaking 
out upon it like a flood. The flow of these enjoyments in 
the sensitive mind, may be compared to the movement of 



THE SPIRTUAL FEELINGS. 26/ 

music, now gay and cheerful, now common-place, now low 
and sad, now mysterious, now wild, now sublime, gliding 
from phase to phase of emotion, with perfect ease and 
inexhaustible felicity. The scope, body, variety of feel- 
ings which are either in whole or in part of an esthetical 
character, are in sensitive, poetic temperaments very 
marked. A large share, both of their gentler as well as ' 
more exalted pleasures, spring from this source. 

The form of action which these emotions prompt is mani- 
fest. They always afford a mild, often a powerful stimulus 
to painstaking, emulative and refined action. They pro- 
mote the finish, the perfections, the beauty of ever}'- product 
of the hand or of the mind. They reveal themselves in 
the physical results of labor, and certainly not less in 
character. The restraints and checks of esthetic sentim ents 
are experienced constantly in manners and social customs, 
and, if the taste is keen and just, in the more deep, per- 
sonal, spiritual traits of action. Indeed, nobility, mag- 
nanimity, the symmetry and proportion of robust, thorough, 
healthy virtue, can hardly be reached without a large in- 
fusion of this esthetic insight, which discerns, delicately and 
completely, the formal as well as the intrinsic bearing of 
conduct. The dependent, complementary relation of the 
esthetic to the ethic sense cannot be doubtful. Some may 
strive to make of the first a detached law of action, but it 
only performs safely and to the full its office, as it accepts 
the higher law, and aids in its complete application. Per- 
fect beauty in man, its highest subject, is the strong and va- 
ried and delicate development of moral power — the infusion 
of all the members and means of life with this inner, true 
life of the soul — the flowing outward in limb, lineament, 
and language of those manifold forces and susceptibilities 
that spring from wholesome, healthy, physical forces, in 
the handling of a supreme, spiritual power. Taste rightly 
developed can no more fail to distinguish morality from 



268 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

immorality, to work under the one and against the other, 
than it can fail to discriminate between life and death, 
health and disease, exalt the first, and hide the second in 
its deformity. Beauty stands in the same relation to action 
as right ; like it, enjoins and forbids, rewards and punishes. 
It blows a more silvery trumpet, its notes are less clear, 
penetrating and decisive than those which break sternly 
forth from the lips of ethical law, yet they wind their way 
into many remote places, and persuasively bend into cheer- 
ful and perfect order, the otherwise unpliant recruits of 
virtue. 

§ 3. We have now reached the feelings which are more 
central and characteristic, in the class to which they belong, 
the moral sentiments. The emotions just spoken of would 
lose much of their character were it not for their interpene- 
tration by those of the moral nature. It is this filtration of 
the higher sensibilities downward which gives adherence 
and authority to the recognition of truth, to esthetical feel- 
ings, which of themselves sirnply have little binding force. 
The only imperative voice in man's nature, is that of con- 
science, of moral intuitions ; all other authority is but the 
echo and reflection of this. In one view of the subject our 
moral nature may be said to be our entire nature ; since a 
moral quality and moral relation are imparted to all 
thoughts and actions, by the presence of this supreme, su- 
pervisory power. In a more familiar use, our moral na- 
ture includes these emotions which more directly spring 
from it. Conscience, the perceptive faculty, which, in an 
indivisible act, sees the right and feels the sense of obliga- 
tion, is the centre of our moral constitution. Without it, 
we should have no affections, moral sentiments ; with it, 
we find the whole atmosphere of our being irradiated, and a 
thousand colors revealed in objects, tangible, indeed, in the 
darkness, with odor and with flavor, but with no direct avenue 
of approach through the physical night to the intellectual 



THE SPIRITUAL FEELINGS. 269 

(lay. Light does not more modify, I may say etherealize 
matter, multiplying a thousand fold its intelligible signs, 
crowding them in from all quarters and all distances on 
the astonished mind, than does a moral perception affect 
our estimates of character, deepen in meaning, and broad- 
en in time, the relations of actions. 

The fundamental moral feeling from which all others 
spring, is that of obligation. This, as regards pleasure 
and pain, is indifferent. It may give place to one or the 
other, according to the attitude assumed toward the duties 
designated. The blended, the indivisible nature of the in- 
tuition, and the accompanying sentiment should be care- 
fully marked. A sense of obligation, a mere feeling, with 
nothing to which that feeling attaches, by which it is 
evoked, is theoretically unintelligible, and practically un- 
servicable. An intuition of right on the other hand, which 
does not instantly assume the force and pressure of duty, 
loses its character and slips from the throne of the mind. 
Intrinsic quality and exterior form, the intellectual and the 
emotional elements, are inseparably blended, and give us 
a command, whose unquestionable authority, like one 
born to rule, is in the immediate fact, in tone, attitude, 
outspoken power. 

If obedience follows the in-timations of our moral 
sense, there sets in a deep and deepening current o-f plea- 
surable feelings, of reward. The force and intensity of 
these emotions will depend very much on the degree in 
which the judgments which sustain the action of con- 
science, which prepare the way for its decisions, have been 
cultivated ; on the relative force which the moral sentiments 
have secured in our constitution by obedience. Ethical, 
like esthetical feelings, are very dependent on cultivation. 
The reason of this is obvious, since in neither case are 
we dealing, as in external perception, with a direct, im- 
mediate faculty, but with one acting on the previous in- 



270- PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tellections, the previous conceptions of the mind, and 
therefore limited in its scope and correctness to them. 
It is evident that the character of phenomena should be 
judged by instances in which they are most manifest and 
complete, not by cases in which they are obscure and fur- 
tive. A powerful moral nature makes itself at once felt 
in the pleasures it pours in upon the obedient mind, of 
such degree and quality, that the appreciative heart prefers 
them to all others, and purchases them at any price of suf- 
fering which can be exacted of it Yet these enjoyments 
are of a tranquil rather than of a violent kind ; a deep 
sense of satisfaction in the choices made, a thorough con- 
tentment in actions done, an inner approval which antici- 
pates a like outward acceptance on the part of the wise 
and just. 

The feelings which follow disobedience, though more ir- 
regular and unequal in their action, often dilatory and par- 
tial, when compared with those of approval and reward, yet 
frequently assume a strong, clear, undeniable character. 
Sliame, guilt, remorse, willful opposition, and sullen despair, 
may, in turn, hold sway, and make themselves as distinct 
as, and more bitter than, any other feelings which the heart 
ever experiences. For reaching this result, more or less 
time may be required. Repeated disclosure of the disasters 
of transgressions, the accumulation of physical retributions, 
a revelation of pervasive law, hemming in and baffling the 
disobedient, may be needed to instruct the moral judgments, 
and awaken the moral sense. When, however, a pause is 
given to the career of sin, when reflection and the intuitive 
results of reflection can no longer be averted, the force and 
direction of moral emotion are as certain as the pain or 
pleasure of sense, when things bitter or sweet are on the 
palate. The pains of indigestion may follow more slowly 
than disgust from food in itself offensive ; but the conse- 
quences are no less of a distinct and undeniable character. 



THE SPIRITUAL FEELINGS. 27 1 

Moral sufferings may be postponed in more ways, and longer 
than many other emotional issues of action ; yet the de- 
velopment of causes ripens them none the less certainly to 
their results. The whole history of the race, renders the posi- 
tive character of the moral sentiments as undeniable as the 
physical consequences of an unwholesome diet. The fear, 
the cowardice, the apprehension, the boldness, the approval, 
the confidence ; self-condemnation, self-gratulation ; the 
reproaches of conscience, the dismay, the despair attendant 
on wickedness achieved, the composure of assured convic- 
tion, the calm anticipation of suffering, the triumph over it, 
fill the records of history, are the staple of dramatic and he-' 
roic fiction. Heathen and Christian literature alike, 
breathes in its more profound and earnest moods, one 
spirit. 

Says Juvenal : 

" But tell me, why must those be thought to 'scape. 
Whom guilt, arrayed in very dreadful shape. 
Still urges, and whom conscience, ne'er asleep, 
Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud but deep. 
While the vexed mind, her own tormentor, pUes 
A scorpion scourge, unmarked by human eyes." 

The history of martyrs especially develops the moral 
forces in man, since, on these feelings, the struggle has 
turned. The cruel tossings of such a mind as that of Cran- 
mer, clear, conscientious, yet timid and distrustful, between 
fear and conviction, discloses as certainly as any thing can 
disclose the nature of the forces at work, unless it be the 
varying sympathy, the alternate charity and condemnation 
of succeeding generations, in view of the momentary over- 
throw and ultimate triumph of the moral sentiments in the 
fearful, bold martyr. 

§ 4. Personal qualities are greatly modified by the mo- 
ral nature. Meekness, humility lose all servility, are con- 
sistent with the utmost strength, and firmness softens down 
without weakening the outline of character. 



27» PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Still more is this true of our feelings towards others. 
These, in the conscientious temperament, receive almost 
their entire force from the moral sentiments. The affec- 
tions, a distinct class of sensibilities, are our emotions to- 
ward others as moral beings. Admiration, love, sympathy, 
benevolence, forgiveness, charity, patience, indignation, 
contempt, shame, are feelings, which, though they may 
bear the same name with certain intellectual emotions, are 
very different from them. Love a passion, and love an af- 
fection, the indignation of anger, and the indignation of a 
violated moral sense, are alike diverse sentiments in their 
relation both to enjoyment and to action. The first may 
as easily prey upon happiness as promote it ; the second 
cannot fail of being productive of pleasure. 

In the moral sensibilities, the sharpness, the bitterness 
of the selfish element disappear, and the benignity, compo- 
sure, patience of a moral impulse take their place. It is 
the intermingling of the kinds of feeling, and of the words 
applicable to them, which confound the character of action, 
and the classification of this department. 

The direction in which the moral sensibilities find fullest 
play is that of religious sentiments. The relations and 
duties designated as religious are those which, by the feel- 
ings, the results involved, are fitted to act most powerfully 
on the conscience and affections. The religious emotions, 
therefore, seem at times to overshadow other forms of eth- 
ical action, since their intensity and scope bear some pro- 
portion to the interests involved, — to the ennobling, greatly 
stimulating presentations of the divine attributes. The 
.foundation of religion is ethics, yet the ethical form is often 
swallowed up in the deep, spontaneous play of the religious 
aifections. If we consider the permanent issues of happi- 
ness, of joy and peace, as settled in our own constitution 
by the moral sentiments, and the relation of our action un- 
der them ; if we remember that nothing in our fellow-men 



DYNAMICS OF THE EMOTIONS. 273 

IS of more abiding interest to us than their character, than the 
moral purposes indicated, and line of conduct adopted : 
and, above all, if we bring to mind that the deepest, the 
supreme play of feeling is towards God, chiefly known to 
us as a moral being, we shall see that this class of senti- 
ments now presented, are at once the most varied, the 
most full, the most central and powerful of our emotions. • 
So pervasive are they, that they give coloring to intellectual 
feelings which they cannot rule, enter in a fragmentary 
form where completeness is denied them, and are brought 
in to intensify or modify or disguise sentiments intrinsically at 
war with them. The exact shades of approval and condem- 
nation, of contentment and restlessness, of belief and unbe- 
lief in them, are as endless as are the relations which men's 
actions assume to virtue. 

Their authority, their retributive connection with pleasure 
and pain, the undercurrent of fear or hope, of repose or 
alarm, of conscious virtue or acknowledged guilt, which 
they cause to flow through the soul, obviously assign them 
the highest rank in the highest class of feelings. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Dynamics of the Emotions. 

§ I. We have spoken of the three classes of feelings ; 
the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual. We wish 
now to see them more collectively in their relations to each 
other, in the formation of character and the control of ac- 
tion. The first class spring immediately from physical con- 
ditions, and, including incidental occasions of pleasure, 
have primary reference to physical well-being. At points 
they transcend this object. Taste, touch, smell, are means 
of simple, intellectual distinctions ; yet, it remains true, 



274 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

that the senses which are the avenues of feeling, the appe- 
tites, the sensations, indicating special physical conditions, 
all have primary reference to health, to guiding action, in 
nourishing and maintaining the vigour of the body. Even 
here, it can hardly be said, that, "All pleasure arises from 
the free play of our faculties and capacities ; and all pain 
from their compulsory repression, or compulsory activity." 
Much less is this generalization of Hamilton's applicable to 
the remaining classes of emotion. 

It is the unhealthy and the healthy action, the un- 
wholesome repression and the wholesome repression, 
that give pain and pleasure respectively, and this not 
always at once, but as an ultimate consequence. Pain 
enters frequently to arrest action, and not as the con- 
sequence of arrested action. Mere activity, voluntary 
though it may be, does not necessarily give the conditions 
of enjoyment : these must depend on its relations to health. 
Neither does repressed exertion, involuntary though the 
restraint may be, define the conditions of physical suffering. 
Overlooking the mental vexation of such constraint, the 
physical consequences may be agreeable. Physical plea- 
sures seem to depend on the relation which activity and re- 
pose have to health, and not on their relation to the will of 
the agent. Some forms of disease provoke voluntary, fitful, 
restless, yet painful effort. The exertion, or the want of it, 
by no means explains the accompanying pain or pleasure. 
These are ultimate facts ; we know through experience their 
general connection with physical well-being. Our pain 
and pleasures come in this way to impart a direct stimulus 
to appropriate effort for the maintenance of the body, still 
more to instruct us as to its condition and wants, and thus, 
in a secondary way, guide our action. They also subserve 
the purpose of intellectual discrimination, and of gratilica- 
tion. 

The second class have relation to success, are pleasurable 



DYNAMICS OF THE EMOTIONS. 275 

and painful in proportion as this intellectual end is secured 
or lost. Unsuccessful activity, no matter how free and 
spontaneous it may have been, is always, in the intellectual 
feelings which accompany it, disagreeable, often intensely 
painful. Our physical and our intellectual enjoyments 
may not always harmonize. Effort in itself wholesome, 
may fail of its object and occasion disappointment ; and 
exertion crowned with the most flattering success, may 
bring severe infliction of physical penalties. The mind in- 
stitutes its own ends, and afterwards finds pleasure, or ex- 
periences suffering, by its prosperity or failure in the pur- 
suit of them. As the primary relation of the intellectual 
emotions is to success in the ends aimed at, the pleasure 
and pain in this direction experienced, act as stimuli to 
sagacity, and faithfulness in the choice and use of means. 
This is an instrumental, an intermediate field, and its en- 
joyments are of a secondary, intermediate character. 

Spiritual pleasures have reference to the choice of ends, 
to the marking out of lines of conduct, — to obedience to 
higher, alternative impulses. These again may often fail of 
concurrence with intellectual enjoyments. We have the 
satisfaction of success in the attainment of ends which we 
should never have chosen, and the moral rebuke may thus 
set in at the point at which the intellectual pleasure is most 
complete. Physical health and spiritual health are ulti- 
mate, and the secondary intellectual enjoyments cannot 
avert the consequences of failure as regards either of them. 
Spiritual enjoyments and sufferings come in to enforce 
obedience, — obedience to the law of spiritual life. They 
stand in the same relation to this, that physical pleasures do 
to the lower life of the body. They are simple, ultimate, 
with the approval of the moral sense sustaining them. 
With self-established authority, the conscience legislates for 
the whole man, and according as its commands are wisely 
understood, and wisely applied, the minor physical and in- 



276- PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tellectual enjoyments are gathered up in these supreme 
pleasures of the soul. 

Our enjoyments are not thus simply the fruits of activity, 
they are of such a character as to define its limits, and di- 
rect it to appropriate objects. The law of life in the whole 
man is indicated by them. The ends to be pursued, the 
limits to be set to activity, even in its right directions, are 
pointed out, with the accompanying injunction laid upon 
us of a skillful choice and use of means. 

§ 2. The three classes of feelings now referred to, have 
a successive, rather than an equal and simultaneous hold 
on the mind. The physical feelings are most immediate, 
direct, importunate in their claims. The intellectual life 
is awakened through the physical life, in some sense fol- 
lows it. The sensations, the appetites, the states of the 
body, are early and decided means of good and evil — • 
means independent of thought, with a necessary and irre- 
sistible appeal to the sensibilities. The intellectual feelings, 
as secondary, involve a previous action of mind, are not 
strong except in connection with considerable anticipation, 
forethought, a somewhat broad survey of the relations ot 
actions. For this reason, the desires do not set in in a 
deep, strong current, except in more advanced minds, or 
in the more civilized states of society. In a barbarous 
community, the immediate impulses are chiefly animal ; in 
a civilized community the desires come to rule the leading 
classes, while the appetites still bear sway in the lower 
ranks. The spiritual feelings are yet more tardy in their 
full development. For anything like broad, decisive action 
of our higher intuitions, there is requisite much previous 
reflection. As beauty involves the union of inner power 
with perfect form, there must be, for its due perception, a 
deep, discriminating insight into both. As the universal 
sway of morality arises from a clear perception of the de- 
pendence of individual and general well-being on the form 



DYNAMICS OF THE EMOTIONS. 277 

and spirit of conduct in its every manifestation, it is not till 
faithful observation, and protracted reflection have disclosed 
the character and issues of action, that the ethical impulse 
can find very complete application. In the outset it is 
likely to be confined to a few negative precepts, cutting off 
the individual from gross violations of the right. Ten 
commandments expounded in the most barren way may*- 
seem its limits. Only the latest culture can open these in- 
to the pervasive precept of universal love. The most en- 
lightened communities, therefore, as yet present a very par- 
tial government of the spiritual sentiments. When the ar- 
tistic sensibilides have been awakened, they have hitherto 
aff"ected but limited classes, and this in a partial, one-sided 
form, sometimes even in direct violation of the moral sen- 
timent which underlies all high acts. The religious emo- 
tions also have been restricted in their action, and fragmen- 
tary in their character. The spirit and the force of a higher 
life have not, in their completeness, been grasped, and we 
have had an ethics more or less at war with esthetics — a 
rugged force, which could not yet discriminate and com- 
mand all the elements requisite for its own most perfect 
expression. 

§ 3. Were it not that communides — that successive gen- 
erations of men, achieve a collective growth, which the in- 
dividual is able to receive inductively from them, starting 
at the point they have already reached ; this order of devel- 
opment in the feelings would make the condition of man- 
kind comparatively hopeless. But the growth of society 
reveals very clearly this progress from the physical to the in- 
tellectual feelings, and in an incipient form is disclosing 
that farther movement by which the artistic and ethical sen- 
timents, under the perfect, harmonious rule of the higher 
impulse, shall take the supreme position amid the powers 
and pleasures of the human heart. 

When any one feeling begins to predominate in the in- 



278 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

dividual or the community, many things concur to 
strengthen its hold. Take, as an illustration, such a desire 
as that for wealth. It soon becomes a strong current, 
plowing for itself a deep bed, walled on either hand, and 
not readily changed. The desire by repetition returns 
easily, as an habitual one. Surrounding objects and pur- 
suits are more and more contemplated in their ability to 
gratify this feeling, and therefore by their presence more 
uniformly bring it uppermost in the mind. Kindred pur- 
suits draw together parties in whom the desire is already 
developed, and by emulation and the confirmation of like 
judgments, they inflame it in each other. Thus a large 
commercial city seems a ver}' maelstrom of economic cur- 
rents, and every individual, a separate particle spinning 
round and round under the same feverish impulse, and 
waiting to be swallowed up by the same insatiable lust. 
The brood of feelings also warmed into life by a parent de- 
sire, unite at once in the same clamorous and importunate 
cries. Vanity, pride, the satisfaction of success, the fear of 
failure, all quicken effort, and occupy the heart, when for 
a moment, the original impulse relaxes. The circle of 
secondary desires is momentarily enlarged as the means of 
gratification are placed within their reach, and the wealth 
acquired is often less and less able to meet the claims laid 
upon it, by feelings which, without law or limit in them- 
selves, become monstrous and ravenous in proportion to 
the food given them. Thus external and internal circum- 
stances are increasingly shaped to the ruling feeling — 
grow up more and more under it, institute claims in har- 
,mony with it, confirm the judgments which sustain it, and 
weaken and remove to a distance, adverse emotion. From 
this household of dependents, from this pressure of a prev- 
alent opinion, from this confirmed and consoHdated con- 
viction of the soul itself, it is difficult to find an avenue of 
escape. If we substitute an appetite for a desire, though 



DYNAMICS OF THE EMOTIONS. 279 

there is less warping of the judgment, there is in its place 
a peevish, persecuting habit, not easily to beworn out or re- 
sisted. From this confirmed movement which the feel- 
ings for the time-being assume, it becomes necessary that /'"H 
the forces which work for progress, should find concentra- 
tion, and also, that long periods should be allowed them in 
which to possess and fortify the ground they may be able 
to win. The overthrow of one class of feelings, and their 
permanent replacement by another, in a community, is a 
truly gigantic work, requiring often the slow eradication 
and correction of a protracted and varied experience. 

§ 4. The feelings involve, equally with the thoughts, an 
expenditure of power, of vital force. The stronger feel- 
ings therefore cannot long last. They must be relatively 
brief. Intense grief is followed by comparative apathy ; 
exciting pleasures by depression of spirits, and vehement 
anger by relative inditference. Hence it happens that 
those who are most violent in their feelings are most fickle 
— the rush of the mind in one direction, soon provoking 
the return gale. The evenly happy life must be fed by the 
milder, more sustained sentiments ; and the peace, the rest 
of the soul is found in the balance and correction of its 
feelings, one by the other. The moral sentiments yield 
superior repose, not from their own nature alone, but also 
from the restraints and rule to which they subject all vexing 
and exorbitant emotions. Esthetic pleasures are among 
the most peaceful, since they are among the most harmon- 
ized and proportionate of the sentiments. An over- 
wrought moral sentiment is sure to provoke corres- 
ponding distortion and discomfort in the spiritual life. 

The chief difference between play and labor seems to be 
that the one gives vent to a superabundant power and life 
in a direction in which it spontaneously flows, and the other 
demands, in view of a reward, exertion to which the phy- 
sical or intellectual state does not prompt. Labor ap- 



28t) PRIN'CIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

preaches play in its character in proportion as the effort 
becomes spontaneous. Now success stimulates the feel- 
ings, and the quickened feelings arouse the active powers in 
the direction of their gratification. Hence it happens, that 
those whose labor is abundantly rewarded often take so keen a 
delight in it, as scarcely to be willing to turn aside for so-called 
play. The true amt;lioration of labor is success, the success* 
which expresses power and enhances it, which makes the 
movement of realization easy and sportive. Drudgery is not so 
much labor as poorly requited labor. Hence labor that is 
undertaken under the prompting of strong desire, is much 
more easily endured than the same exertion when coerced ; 
since incidentally the pleasurable feelings find play, and en- 
liven and make easy, the effort. Self-directed and prosper- 
ous labor, then, will, in proportion as these elements of lib- 
erty and power enter into it, assume the character of play, 
and the ultimate lifting up of the burden of toil will be 
found in a more spontaneous and successful movement, 
that is, in one more thoroughly intellectual. Exactly in the 
degree in which the higher power is present and prevalent, 
do we already see the servitude of labor removed, and it 
made the desire of the mind. Virtue must assume this 
easy, irrepressible character which belongs to the physical 
putting forth of animal life, before it can lay aside the 
harsh aspect of toil and struggle, and present the beauty of 
angelic strength — strength that is no more burdened by the 
load laid upon it, than the hero of the ring with his own 
muscle. 

§ 5. The feelings of the animal, if the view we have 
presented of his endowments is correct, are almost purely 
physical. His courage is physical courage ; his fear, phy- 
sical fear ; that is to say, these states are imposed upon him 
directly by external objects. The one is the rushing in of 
nerve power, prompting to conflict ; the other, the deser- 
tion of the seats of strength by the energies of life — an im- 



DYNAMICS OF THE EMOTIONS. 201 

mediate provocation, an inclination, to flight instead of at- 
tack. Memory, giving rise to association, may indeed, in 
the higher animals, start trains of feeling and thus of ac- 
tion, aside from the power of the object which is more re- 
motely their cause. Yet these feelings are comparatively 
limited. Little apprehension is shown except in the pres- 
ence of danger, and then not according to its real nature, 
but its sensible form. The alarm manifested by many ani- 
mals assumes a direct, instinctive character, — the appro- 
priate action evidently follows the sensitive impression with- 
out any intervention of judgment. The young of the part- 
ridge hide themselves instantly on the first intrusion. Barn 
fowls are filled with immoderate and universal alarm as 
the shadow of the hawk glides by them. The actions of 
the lower creation assume generally this direct dependence 
on sensations, with an occasional intervention of the in- 
tellectual element of association. 

Having now the emotions completely before us in their 
relation to the mind, and to each other, we are better able 
to decide on the merits of that theory which recognizes but 
two classes, resolving the spiritual feelings into the intellec- 
tual. This will hardly seem possible, if we fairly estimate 
all that belongs to the intuitive emotions. These higher 
sentiments so percolate downward, so tinge secondary feel- 
ings, giving them a new character and value, that it is diffi- 
cult to analyze out the purely physical sensibilities, and to 
see how far these, with the action of the mental faculties 
upon them, can be made the foundation of our rich, emo- 
tional endowments. When, with the utilitarian, we under- 
.take honestly to construct our entire spiritual constitution 
from these purely physical elements, we have a heavy labor 
laid upon us. Not only must the primary sense of truth, of 
beauty, and of obligation, be laid aside, all the affections 
which spring from them must be dismissed, and also that 
esthetical or ethical quality or flavor which inevitably pene- 
trates intellectual emotions, whose staple is physical plea- 



202 PRINXIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

sure. A rogue will pride himself on a certain honor, whose 
fiber and force are found in single threads of morality. A 
clown is vain of possessions, whose excellence consists 
largely in beauties hidden in great part from him. 

Do this work of analysis thoroughly, separate carefully 
out all but strictly physical feelings, and we shall find re- 
maining very inadequate elements, to be transformed by»- 
intellectual combination into the varied and profound sen- 
sibilities of a truly developed nature. The natural feeling 
of tenderness must be made the material out of which this 
vast superstructure is reared. Yet, in the powerful and 
growing consent of appetite and purely selfish impulses, 
how quickly and wholly would this feeble sentiment be 
swept away. How hopeless the effort to stay the actual 
forces of mischief in the world, not only with no sense of 
obligation in the mind, but no admiration of virtue, no per- 
ception of the beauty of excellence as such, no delight in 
any form of intrinsic merit, but. always and everywhere, a 
cold, gross, sensual judgment of actions and their results ; 
— the pleasure of compassion rated coolly at its scale-mark 
in a Selfish mind, and with nothing farther to commend it, 
except as it can be shown ultimately to make way for phy- 
sical indulgence. 

Grade these pleasures of the body, give them each their 
numerical value, put the occasional play of natural sympa- 
thy with them : let the intellect honestly, closely adhere to 
them ; add, subtract, involve, evolve, at pleasure ; and 
forecast in the long reaches of its calculations such periods 
as it pleases, and how infinitely short, after all, must its pro- 
mises to a line of right, that is, sagacious action, fall short 
of those deep, instant, noble impulses which our sense of 
beauty and of virtue bestow. Virtue is useful because it 
holds in its right hand peculiar and unmeasured rewards, 
because it is virtue. It is not virtue because it is useful, be- 
cause it is laden with baskets filled with fruits plucked from 
the trees, of a sensual paradise. 



BOOK III. 



THE WILL. 

§ I. We have now to speak of the powers of volition — 
the centre and source of free activity. Willing is distin- 
guished from thinking and feeling in its positive and pecu- 
liar character, by a reference to consciousness — to that ex- 
perience in which its phenomenal nature is laid open. It, 
moreover, bears a different relation to action from that of 
eithei of the other two, and this may be pointed out. It 
stands in the last, the most immediate connection with ef- 
fort. Exertion is prompted by feeling, is anticipated and 
guided by thought, is initiated and maintained by volition. 
While the motive lies back in the emotions, the final deter- 
mination and executive impulse of free action are found in 
the will. The intellect is instrumental, secondary, inter- 
mediate in its of&ce. It presents objects to the feelings, 
and inquires into the means of their easiest, safest, grati- 
fication. 

The voluntary powers are simple as compared either with 
those of thought or feeling. Our emotions present by far 
the most numerous, complex and varied features of the 
mind. Our intellectual faculties are relatively few, yet ex- 
ceedingly subtle in their inter-dependence and action. Our 
voluntary powers are yet more simple, and offer their chief 
difficulty in intrinsic character, in the problem of liberty. 
There are certain anticipatory forms of vital action, of 



284" PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

which we shall speak, though not properly voluntary. 
Next we shall consider executive volitions, and later, the 
highest form of volition, choice, determination. The first 
division of volitions is into primary and executive volitions. 
Primary volitions may be farther divided into ultimate and 
desultory volitions. This last distinction, however, is not 
one which takes hold in the least of the character itself of 
the determination, but is only one which marks its rela- 
tions in action. The ultimate choice is that which presents 
the most remote objects of pursuit in reference to which 
other volitions are intermediate and secondar}\ As we 
meet among these intervening volitions, some that overlook 
for the moment the claims of the primary purpose, and 
are not therefore in reference to it, executive, we term them 
desultory choices. They differ not in intrinsic character 
from ultimate choices. The ground of division is found 
in their relation to the individual, to his line of action. 



CHAPTER I. 

Vital Action anticipatory of Volition. 

§ I. We are not to understand from the caption of this 
chapter, that any form of simple vital action contains the 
germ of true volition, of choice. This prior, unconscious 
action is nevertheless so closely united with the secondary, 
dependent forms of voluntary effort, known as executive 
volitions, that we shall not be able to understand these, 
'without some general apprehension of the mechanism they 
employ, and its methods of play, under simple, vital 
forces. 

Life, we hold to be a superior, independent power, 
working pervasively, yet under one harmonious plan or 
impulse in all parts of the living body. This life, — this 



VITAL ACTION ANTICIPATORY OF VOLITION. 285 

pre-eminent, peculiar and inscrutable power, whether we 
regard it as the immediate presence of the Divine hand, oi 
as a distinct existence, is /he maker — the indispensable ar- 
chitect of that most strange and marvelous of structures, a 
living thing ; be it plant, shrub, tree, insect, bird, beast, or 
man. Molecular, chemical, electric, thermal forces are 
the means employed ; but these as much fail to explain 
the form and relations of the final product, the wonderful 
manner of its putting up and repair, as do the stone, mor- 
tar and timber, the digging, the hewing, and the heaving, 
the plan and proportions of a cathedral. The exact thing 
to be accounted for is that on which these blind forces cast 
no light. How came they to work in these marvelous re- 
lations to each other ; how to institute these unusual and 
strange conditions of various and complete life, a power 
which they nowhere else exhibit ? We explain the action 
v/ithinthe chemist's retort, by the chemical properties of the 
material present, but the retort itself, the application of the 
heat, the proportion of the ingredients, the experiment as 
an experiment, must find a solution in a new, an intelli- 
gent agency. Account as we will for changes that go on 
in the blood, that there should be veins, arteries, such a 
fluid as the blood, and the needed power to propel it ; 
these and like adaptations which make up the living agent, 
meet with no explanation in simple, molecular forces. Yet 
these forces always and everywhere intervene between the 
inscrutable agent and the phenomenal result. Under a 
phenomenal form, they are the second point reached back 
of the first — the complete, the massive product. Mole- 
cular movement is to the living structure, what the mechan- 
ical transfer of stone and timber is to the edifice. Many 
of the changes by which the animal structure is built up 
and renewed, take place locally, by an action there insti- 
tuted. But as the parts of the body are reciprocally inter- 
dependent, the changes of one part must be correlated and 



286 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

harmonized with the state, the wants of other parts. Tliis 
transfer of vital sympathy and force is chiefly afi'ected by 
the nervous system, which is also the instrument of the 
will— of the mind. An intricate net-work of nerves lies 
over the surface of the body, spreads through its members, 
and is gathered in certain lines and centres of nervous 
communication. The character and ofiSce of the nervous 
system are compactly stated in the following quotation, 
taken, by Bain, from Quains Anatomv : "The Nervous 
System consists of a central part, or rather a series of con- 
nected central organs named the cerebrospinal axis, or cere- 
brospinal cetitre ; and of the nerves, which have the form of 
cords connected by one extremity with the cerebro-spinal 
centre, and extending from thence through the body to the 
muscles, sensible parts, and other organs placed under 
their control. The nerves form the medium of communi- 
cation between these distant parts and the centre ; one class 
of nervous fibres, termed afferent, (in-bringing) or centri- 
petal, conducting impressions toward the centre, — another 
the efferent (out-carr}'ing) or ce7itrifugal carrying material 
stimuli from the centre to the moving organs. The nerves 
are therefore said to be internuncial in their office, whilst 
the central organ receives the impressions conducted to it 
by the one class of nerves, and imparts stimuli to the 
other, rendering certain of these impressions cognizable to 
the mind, and combining in due association, and towards 
a definite end, movements, whether voluntary or involun- 
tary, of different, and often of distant parts." "The ner- 
vous system is made up of a substance proper and peculiar 
to it, with enclosing membranes, cellular tissues, and 
blood-vessels. The nervous substance has long been dis- 
tinguished into two kinds, obviously differing from each 
other in color, and therefore named the white and the grey, 
or cineritious." The collective mass, made up of the 
Cerebrum, the Cerebellum the Pons Varolii, the Medulla 



VITAL ACTION ANTICIPATORY OF VOLITION. 287 

Oblongata and Spinal Cord, constitutes the nervous centre, 
the Cerebro-Spinal Axis. 

' ' It would appear, then, that the cerebro-spinal centre, or 
the brain and spinal cord taken together, is an aggregate of 
distinct nervous masses or parts, each made up of a mixture 
of white and grey matter. The grey matter is the vesicular 
substance consisting of cells or vesicles : the white matter 
is the fibrous substance, being made up of fibres bundled 
together. The grey matter is a terminus; to it the fibrous col- 
lections lead, or from it commence. The fibrous matter con- 
tained within any of the cerebral masses is placed there as a 
means of communicating with some portion or other of the 
layers, or other collections, of grey substance. Beginning 
with the spinal cord, — which we have seen to be a rod or 
column of white matter or fibres, enclosing a slender core 
of grey substance ; — if we trace the fibres of the cord up- 
wards, we find them continuing into the medulla oblonga- 
ta, the first and the lowest portion of the brain. Of the 
whole mass of fibres entering the medulla oblongata, the 
larger portion pass up into the pons Varolii and the cere- 
bellum : while a part terminates in the grey substance of the 
medulla itself; and from that grey substance other fibres 
take their rise and proceed onward, in the company of the 
through-going fibres of the cord. Thus the emerging white 
matter of the medulla oblongata is partly the fibres that en- 
tered it as a continuation of the cord, and partly the fibres 
originating in the grey central matter of the medulla, re- 
placing, as it would ' seem, those that terminated there. 
From the pons Varolii, where we come next, the white 
fibres advance in various directions, intersecting with trans- 
verse fibres connecting the two halves of the cerebellum, 
and passing upwards towards the cerebrum proper. The 
fibres thus going upwards constitute the crura, peduncles, 
or .stems of the cerebrum, and seem destined to terminate in 
the grey matter of the convoluted surface of the hemispheres. 



288- PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

But in passing through the ganglia of the brain — the thalami 
optici, and corpora striata — the arrangement described above 
is repeated ; that is to say, while part of the fibres pro- 
ceed through the ganglionic masses, the rest stop short in 
the grey substance of those masses, which grey substance 
gives origin to other fibres to pass out with those that had 
an uninterrupted course through the bodies alluded to. 
Both sets together — those passing through and those origin- 
ating in the grey substance of the corpora striata, or tha- 
lami optici, constitute a portion of the white or fibrous 
substances of the hemispheres, spreading out and termin- 
ating in the grey matter, or cortical layer of the convolu- 
tions. They are the first of three classes of fibres, de- 
scribed above, as constituting the white matter of the cere- 
brum, that is to say, the ascending or diverging class. 

" Whatever number of central masses we may calculate as 
interposed between the spinal cord beneath, and the con- 
voluted surface of the cerebrum, the manner of communica- 
tion between them is found to be as now stated. The 
fibres passing between one intermediate mass and another, 
are partly transmitted and partly arrested. Wherever grey 
matter exists, there is the commencement or termination 
of white matter. The fibres that enter the cerebellum 
from the medulla oblongata, terminate in whole or in part 
in its outer layer of grey substance, and in that, substance 
a new set of fibres originate to pass to other parts of the 
brain, as the corpora quadrigemina, the hemispheres, etc., 
and from one half of the cerebellum to the other. The 
fibres spreading out, as already mentioned, in the hemis- 
'pheres toward the convoluted grey surface, will have had very 
various origins. Some may perhaps have come all the way 
from the extremities of the body, passing by the spinal 
cord, medulla oblongata, cerebellum, pons Varolii, thalami 
optici, etc. ; others have originated in the grey matter of 
the cord, passing without a break through all the intervening 



VITAL ACTION ANTICIPATORY OF VOLITION. 289 

centres ; a third class may have had their rise in the grey 
matter of the pons, a fifth in the cerebellum, a sixth in the 
corpora quadrigemina ; others in the thalami optici, or 
corpora striata ; besides other more minut^e sources. 

' ' The arrangement may thus be seen to resemble the 
course of a railway train. The various central masses are 
like so many stations, where the train drops a certain num- 
ber of passengers and takes up others in their stead, whilst 
some are carried through to the final terminus. A system 
of telegraph wires might be formed to represent exactly 
what takes place in the brain. If from a general terminus 
in London, a mass of wires were carried out to proceed 
towards Liverpool, and if one wire of the mass were to 
end at each station, while from the same station new wires 
arose, one for every station, farther on, a complete and 
perfectly independent connexion could be kept up between 
any two stations along the line. Calling the stations A, b, 
c, d, E, there would be from A, the London terminus, 
the wires Ab, Ac, Ad, AE ; from b, would arise, be, bd, 
bE ; from c, cd, cE ; and from d, dc, dE. The mass of 
wires formed on the road at a point between c and d, would 
be A E, or the one through-going wire, bE and bd, cE, 
and cd ; five wires in all, which would be the number 
sustained throughout. This system of telegraph com- 
munication would be, so far as appears, the type of 
nervous communication among the various masses strung 
together in the cerebro-spinal axis or centre." — Bain, 
page 29. 

The nerves are divided into two classes, the spinal and 
the cerebral ; the one passing into the body along the spinal 
cord, the other directly from the brain. The nerves go 
forth in pairs from the spinal cord, passing out on either 
side between the vertebrae. Of this class, there are thirty- 
one couples. Each of these nerves is divided at its root, 
into two portions termed the anterior root and posterior 



290 , PRINXIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

root. These portions subserve distinct purposes. The 
function oT a nerve is to transmit impression, influences, 
or stimuH from one part of the system to another. The 
nerves originate nothing; they are exclusively a medium of 
communication. Yet the nerve is an active rather than a 
passive conductor. It strengthens the current as it passes 
along. The conveying structure is the fibrous, the white 
matter of the ner\'ous system. A different function, that of 
originating influence, is reserved for the grey matter. Dis- 
tinct nerves are devoted to each distinct office of transmis- 
sion, and are divided into two classes according as they 
convey feelings inward, or the stimuli to action outward. 

The cerebral nerves are composed of nine pairs ; four, 
of pure sensation, terminating in the special senses, and 
five motor nerves. 

§ 2. The spinal cord is the means of sensation and of 
movement through the entire trunk and extremities. If 
this cord is cut, sensation and the power of movement by 
the will, are lost in the parts below the point of separation. 
The power of movement nevertheless remains under local 
irritation after the division. Superficial irritation will cause 
a spasmodic movement, accomplished by a reflex action of 
the spinal cord alone. Movements closely resembling vol- 
untary action, of which the individual is unconscious, and 
which he cannot control, will, under these circumstances, 
take place in the limbs. Careful experiments show that a 
circle of nervous action is completed through the spinal cord, 
independently of the brain. The statements here briefly 
made are only those which have received careful experimen- 
tal confirmation. The spinal cord, by virtue of its grey 
matter, is itself secondarily a nerve centre. Including in 
the spinal cord the medulla oblongata, continuous in struc- 
ture and functions with it, we find that they, independently 
of the cerebrum, of feeling or volition, of consciousness, 
originate and sustain many movements. They seem ia 



VITAL ACTION ANTICIPATORY OF VOLITION. 29 1 

opposition to the cerebrum, to be the seat of unconscious, 
involuntary action, to institute and harmonize the automa- 
tic action of the body. Of this sort are most of the move- 
ments connected with digestion. After the food has 
passed the lips, been tasted and masticated in the mouth, 
and thus been fully subjected to inspection and voluntary 
action, it goes through the remaining processes of diges- 
tion, dilution, assimilation, without further consciousness 
or voluntary action. The contractions of the throat, the 
peristaltic movement of the stomach and intestines are ac- 
complished by nervous stimuli transmitted from the me- 
dulla oblongata. This portion of the nervous system, it is 
also thought, chiefly sustains the muscular action in breath- 
ing. This is complex and rhythmical, nicely alternating in 
the states indicated, and in the muscular action induced. 
To receive and combine the indications of the actual state 
of the lungs, and to distribute to the muscles the appro- 
priate stimuli, so far as the movement is stated and invol- 
untary, is thought to be a portion of the office of the me- 
dulla oblongata. This action is, moreover, capable of 
being modified, arrested, or quickened by voluntary 
effort. 

In the same way the support and harmonizing of the 
muscular movements generally are referred with sufficient 
proof to the cerebellum. By far the larger part of this ac- 
tion is involuntary and unconscious, though voluntary 
stimuli can reach and modify it. A portion of this sus- 
taining influence of the voluntary muscles is known to be 
received from the spinal cord alone, to wit, that which 
gives them always a certain tension or tone, distinguishing 
them from lifeless flesh, and maintaining them in readiness 
for instant effort. That the harmonizing and co-ordinating 
of muscular movement are due to the cerebellum, is 
shown by proof briefly presented in the following passage 
from Todd and Bowman, page 50. 



292 , PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

" Animals deprived of the cerebellum are in a condition 
very similar to that of a drunken man, so far as relates to 
their power of locomotion. They are unable to produce 
that combination of action in different sets of muscles 
which is necessary to enable them to assume, to maintain 
any attitudes. They cannot stand still for a moment, and 
in attempting to walk, their gait is unsteady, they totter 
from side to side, and their progress is interrupted by fre- 
quent falls. The fruitless attempts which they make to 
stand or walk, are sufficient proof that a certain degree of 
intelligence remains, and that voluntary power continues to 
be enjoyed." 

The cerebrum, on the other hand, is directly connected 
with all voluntary and conscious action. We present its 
functions in the words of Bain, to whom we are especially in- 
debted in this connection. "Experiments have been made 
with a view of determining the characteristic functions of this 
cerebral mass, so large in the human brain, although 
dwindling to the most insignificant dimensions in the low- 
est vertebrate animals, namely, reptiles and fishes. 

"The convolutions are the portions most accessible to 
operations. The hemispheres have been seen above to con- 
sist of an outer layer of convoluted grey matter, and an in- 
terior mass of white, fibrous, or connecting matter. When 
irritation is applied to the hemispheres, as by pricking or 
cutting, we find a remarkable absence of the eff"ects mani- 
fested in the other centres. Neither feeling nor movement 
is produced. This makes a very great distinction between 
the hemispheres and the whole of the ganglia and centres 
lying beneath them. 

"Pressure from above downwards, produces stupor. 

"The removal of both hemispheres in an animal has the 
following results : 

"First : Sight and hearing are entirely lost. 

"Second: Consciousness, including boih Feeling and 



VITAL ACTION ANTICIPATORY OF VOLITION. 293 

Thought, seems utterly abolished ; so that whatever bodily 
activity may survive, the mental life is extinct. 

"Third : All power of moving for an end, all forethought, 
purpose, or volition, is entirely extinguished. This is an 
inevitable consequence of the preceding fact. For without 
feeling and the memory of feelings and ideas, there can 
be no voluntary action. The simple act of seizing food 
implies, besides the power of sight, the feeling of hunger, 
and the mental association of the appearance of the food 
with the satisfying of the feeling. 

" Fourth : The power of accomplishing many connected 
movements still remains. The actions of flying or walk- 
ing may be sustained after the loss of the hemispheres, but 
in that case a stimulus from without is necessary in order 
to commence the action. As a matter of course, the auto- 
matic actions, those that we have seen to go on in the 
decapitated or anencephalous animal may still proceed. 

"Fifth : The sensibility of the skin, and taste, and smell, 
would appear to remain in a greatly impaired form. Such 
sensibility, however, cannot be of the nature of true sensa- 
tion, for to have a sensation is to feel. It may consist in 
some mode of reflex stimulation, operated through the 
other centres. By operating energetically on any nerve of 
sense, we may excite reflex movements extending over al- 
most all the muscles of the body. 

' ' Hence it appears that the hemispheres of the brain are 
indispensable to the exercise of our two highest senses, and 
to feeling, volition, and thought. " — The Senses and the In- 
tellect, page 57, 

§ 3. We are now prepared to- understand that vital, ner- 
vous action which is not voluntary but anticipatory merely. 
Its first most simple form is that of reflex action — superficial 
irritation returned directly from a nervous centre as motor 
stimulus. This, detached nervous ganglia accomplish in 
animal life, and the divided spinal cord in man. An ad. 



294 • PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

vance on this is seen in continuous, vital movement accom- 
plished by a special nervous centre like the medulla ob- 
longata, wholly involuntary and beyond the cognition of 
the mind. A farther progress is seen in that mixed action 
which is chiefly involuntary, and sustained by a nervous 
centre as the cerebellum, which is not the seat of conscious- 
ness, but is intimately connected with a second nervous 
centre, as the cerebrum, from which it receives voluntar}' in- 
fluences. That we should understand this blending of the 
automatic and the voluntary is indispensable to a right ap- 
prehension of the will. At this point, physical inquiry 
has been very fruitful in its influence on philosophy. 

We are not to regard the nerves as mere dead lines -of 
transit, along which the nerve-fluid, or nerve-power glides, 
but at once as meaifs of generating and transmitting it. 
Says Bain, page, 63 : "The conducting power of nerve 
fibre is attended with nervous waste, and the substance has 
to be constantly renewed from the blood, which is largely 
supplied to the nerves, although not so largely as to the 
vesicles. 

" If now we compare this liability to waste and exhaustion, 
with the undying endurance of an electric wire, we shall be 
struck with a very great contrast. The wire is doubdess a 
more compact, resisting and sluggish mass ; the conduction 
requires a certain energy of electric action to set it agoing, 
and in the course of a great distance becomes faint and dies 
away. The nerve, on the other hand, is stimulated by a 
slighter influence, and propagates that influence, with in- 
crease, by the consumption of its own material. The 
wire must be acted on at both ends, by the closure of the 
circuit, before acting as a conductor in any degree ; the 
nerve takes fire from a slight stimulus, like a train of gun- 
powder, and is wasted by the current that it propagates. If 
this view be correct, the influence conveyed is much more 
beholden to the conducting fibres, than electricity is lo tlie 



VITAL ACTION ANTICIPATORY OF VOLITION. 295 

copper wire. The fibres are made to sustain or increase 
the force at the cost of their own substance. 

"The nerve force is propagated more slowly than an 
electric current through a wire. The rate has been es- 
timated at about two hundred feet a second as an average. 
It is to be remarked, that a nerve is not a simple conduc- 
tor, but is supposed to consist of a countless number of 
molecules, each of which has playing round it an electrical 
current, or currents, which are an obstacle to the simple or 
direct propagation. There is always a certain delay in passing 
through the nerve centres ; a reflex movement occupies 
from one-thirtieth to one-tenth of a second under favor- 
able circumstances, which is more time than would be re- 
quired for transmitting an influence through the same 
length of nerve without interruption. When the stimulus is 
weak, a proportionally longer time is required to produce 
the corresponding movement. We may hence infer that 
what is called nervous excitement is a quicker rate of the 
nervous current. The obvious facts bear out this view." 

These then are the means by which an external force is 
received, modified and distributed in centres, by which an 
internal state directs and secures the succeeding steps in vi- 
tal movement ; by which an inner impulse of the mind is 
made in muscular effort to reach the external world ; or 
by which these vital and mental forms of effort are insepar- 
ably blended. 



CHAPTER II. 

Executive Volition. 

§1. We are to distinguish executive from primary voli- 
tion. Primary volition is frequently termed choice, and 
there is no objection to the word, if we carefully exclude 
from it the intellectual weighing of reasons, the balancing 



296 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

of inducements which often accompany it. The choice, 
the volition, is not in these, but in the act which brings 
them to a conclusion. A choice initiates, determines upon 
a series of acts in reference to an object or end to be 
reached by them ; an executive volition regards the per- 
formance of these acts thus determined on. 

The primary volition is the true seat of freedom, since 
subsequent acts flow necessarily from it. This choice may 
indeed be reconsidered, but so long as it remains in force, 
so long as it is a purpose of the soul, the acts included 
under it, flow directly from it, tixed thereby in their char- 
acter. An alternative is presented to the first volition, not 
to those later volitions by which it is completed. These 
may be looked upon simply as the directed and prolonged 
force of the first, as much so as the repeated shocks of the 
ricochetting cannon-ball are the results of an impulse re- 
ceived at once and in the distance. 

Executive volitions, therefore, have comparatively little in- 
terest. It is only of importance that we distinguish them 
from primary acts of will, and prevent confusion by seeing 
their relation to these. They are successive points from 
which fresh executive impulse is given to a series of ac- 
tions whose existence and purpose have already been deter- 
mined. Some have striven to separate widely between vo- 
lition and choice. The division is a secondary one, cov- 
ered by this distinction between executive and primary vo- 
lition or choice. These secondary volitions springing out 
of consciousness, though properly phenomena of mind- 
become inseparably blended with those automatic, uncon- 
>scious movements, by which most vital action, and the 
larger share even of what is termed voluntary action, is sus- 
tained. 

§ 2. The voluntary and conscious region of action is evi- 
dently very much more limited in the lower animals than in 
man. We might expect this, from the much larger relative 



EXECUTIVE VOLITION. 297 

development of the secondary, nervous centres, as compared 
with the cerebrum — the seat or instrument of conscious ac- 
tivity — in the one case than in the other. A command of 
limbs, a power and discipline of muscle, which with man 
are the result of protracted training, are spontaneous in the 
young of animals. No conscious, tentative effort, seems 
to lie back of their powers. They develop themselves ra- ' 
ther spontaneously, with the precision, certainty and rhythm 
of automatic, nervous life. Sensations, feelings, do their 
work directly, and though as feelings they enter conscious- 
ness, they seem to depart thence with an automatic, rather 
than with a voluntary impulse, with the decision and cer- 
tainty of a self-sustained movement, rather than with the 
hesitancy and uncertainty of choice. With primary voli- 
tions, secondary volitions would seem also to disappear, 
and the conscious and unconscious feelings — or, more 
properly, the feelings and unrecognized physical states — to 
blend with each other in securing fitting muscular stimuli. 
In man, in connection with choice there enters into ac- 
tion a large element of both conscious and voluntary 
stimuli, and these mingle with, and modify, and are sus- 
tained by, the involuntary action of lower nervous centres. 
Indeed, the acquisition of skill seems very much to consist 
in transferring the nervous impulse from the conscious to 
the unconscious centres, or at least, in sustaining the one 
by the automatic action of the other. The distinct, con- 
scious, voluntary impulse of each efl^ort in the combined 
movement is lost, and the changing conditions developed 
by the progress itself of action, — be those recognized or un- 
recognized — with increasing, self-poised force sustain it. 
Here, we would look, so far as we should look at all, for 
the sub-conscious region of Hamilton and others. It is in 
the case of the will found in purely physical phenomena, 
which transpire chiefly in the lower nervous centres, or, if 
in the cerebrum, in it simply as a nervous centre, and not 



398 , PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

as the agent and instrument of mind. Here the physical 
and the mental are closely united, inseparably blended 
with each other, and muscular education lies largely in 
substituting involuntary for voluntary connections — in es- 
tablishing an independent movement which the mind may 
at any moment modify or correct, but is not called upon 
momentarily to sustain. Thus we quicken or check in- 
spiration, though the ordinary action of the lungs proceeds 
independently of the will. Again, we wink when we will, 
yet wink constantly also under a purely vital impulse. 
The movements in walking are also instances of this inter- 
lacing of the voluntary and involuntary — the slow displace- 
ment of the one by the other. A walk determined on, the 
mind may busy itself with other things, and the muscular 
play be unconsciously sustained. If, however, any portion 
of the way presents peculiar difficulties, attention is re- 
newed, and a voluntary stimulus quickens the muscles to 
the needed effort. The leap made, the embarrassments 
overcome, the automatic movement again sets in. 

There is, perhaps, no more complete example of self- 
sustained, nervous action, reached as the result of pro- 
tracted, voluntary effort, than that of reading. In fluent 
enunciation, the organs of speech are modified each min- 
ute, so as to express several hundred distinct sounds. 
These rapid and precise changes go on unconsciously. 
There is no direct, voluntary impulse back of them. So 
far is this true, that it is entirely possible to read intelligibly 
with no conscious recognition, not only of the meaning of 
the words, but even of the letters which compose them. 
One, in moments of abstraction, may find himself at the 
foot of the page, with no proof of having passed over its 
contents, except the attention of others, and the point 
reached by the eye. Such reading, while it transpires, is as 
involuntary, is as unconscious, as purely automatic, as the 
inhalation of the breath which makes it possible. Nor is 



EXECUTIVE VOLITION. 299 

the sensible effect of the images present to the eye on the 
muscles of the throat in guiding and propelling them, any 
more surprising than the declaration each instant, at the 
nervous centre, of the state of the lungs, and the correlative 
return of stimulus. Executive volitions, then, are greatly 
modified by the interplay of voluntary and involuntary ac- 
tion ; by the ease with which the second displaces the first, 
and yet can be restored at option to its former character. 
There seems to be four kinds of vital movement ; those 
always automatic beyond the reach of the will ; those pri- 
marily automatic but capable of modification by volition ; 
those at first voluntary but passing by repetition into direct 
unconscious connections, and those exclusively voluntary. 
Of this last class, the examples are comparatively few, and 
belong chiefly to those desultory actions which have no op- 
portunity to settle down into habit ; that is, to receive 
stated support from involuntary excitement. Yet, even 
these actions are only relatively voluntary. It is doubtless 
impossible to find any complex movement which is wholly 
supported by executive, voluntary effort. Even when we 
utter our own thoughts, though attention and purpose are 
constantly present, a share of the muscular movement, 
that imparting motion to the lungs for instance, is of an in- 
voluntary kind. In struggling to give a difficult sound from 
a foreign language, the effort seems for a time to approach 
independent, voluntary exertion, and is often, for that rea- 
son, very unsuccessful. 



300 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

CHAPTER III. 
Primary Volition, or Choice. 

§ I. We have now reached that central point on which 
all volition rests. Every form of action, previous to this, is 
but a more subtle play of physical forces, a modified 
case of cause and effect. In choice alone, we find the 
home of liberty, the source of power, the unconditioned 
support from which hangs all the chain of linked events. 

Some divisions have been made in choice, which have 
value in practical morals, but little interest in philosophy. 
They mark the relation of choices to the action and charac- 
ter of the person whose they are, and not any inherent dif- 
ference in the volitional acts themselves. Thus, an ultimate 
choice is one which has reference to the most remote, or at 
least, the most general and inclusive ends of action. Thus 
a choice of virtue, right, holiness, is of this nature, since it 
at once sets a limit and law to all other volitions, made se- 
condary in their relations to this. A choice of pleasure to 
be pursued directly and everywhere, is of this character. 
Such choices have more frequently a theoretical than a 
practical existence. The pursuit of pleasure usually arises 
under detached, limited choices fastening to some object at 
no great remove in advance. The universality of such vo- 
lition is of a quasi, not of a formal character. Even the 
choice of virtue is doubtless often made by a specific sur- 
render to a given duty, rather than by a broad forecast of 
the entire field of effort, — is the settling the struggle of 
life under an example, instead of a general principle. 

Desultory volitions are also spoken of ; that is, volitions 
which spring up one side of the leading line of action, di- 
rectly or indirectly at cross purposes with it. Thus one 



PRIMARY VOLITION, OR CHOICE. 3OI 

whose general pursuit is that of pleasure, gives way transient- 
ly to the claims of right, and one usually obedient to duty, 
for a time, turns aside under some peculiar temptation. Of 
these choices, practically there are many ; and while their 
moral bearing is most important, as choices, they present 
no points of particular interest. Life is more frequently 
expended under the impulse of general choices, — not as-- 
suming the character of a single, ultimate choice, though 
as certainly as those choices, throwing action into one di- 
rection — and under desultory choices, bending without re- 
versing the current of the soul. Thus actions flow onward, 
submitting to a gravitation they may not have recognized, 
and yet, in never-ending circuits and turnings, betraying the 
influence of the passing hour. 

§ 2. Passing, then, these distinctions in the relations of 
volitions rather than in their character, we have only to con- 
sider simple choice, the primary act of the will, — the source 
of spontaneous power. We shall speak first of what is in- 
volved in this notion of free-will, choice, and later, of the 
proof of its existence. As liberty is a primary, simple no- 
tion, we must define it by cutting it off" from other things, 
by denying of it those qualities which have become attached 
to it from abroad, reflected upon it from the physical con- 
nections of the world below it, and then leave it to be un- 
derstood and accepted by the intuitive grasp of the mind 
alone. 

Liberty is not, as some would have us believe, found in 
the absence of outside coercion. If this were liberty, the 
plant would be free in its growth ; since this proceeds un- 
der no mechanical, external impulse, is the result of the ac- 
tion of inner forces. When we say that man is free, we do 
not, in the higher use of the word, mean to affirm that he is 
not bound or imprisoned. The ordinary significance of 
language makes this point sufficiently plain. 

By the word choice, we intend to cut off" all efficient 



302 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY, 

forces, that is all physical forces, external or internal, me- 
chanical or vital, from any control over, or direct effect up- 
on the action which is so designated. The commencement 
of the line of effort which springs from a primary volition — 
a volition, as we shall concisely term it — is absolute and 
complete. 

We do not affirm hereby anything concerning the exact 
manner in which the train of physical forces is set in motion 
by volition, but only that it does, of its own power, initiate 
the actions, the physical movements, which follow. These 
may lie in store for it, ready to be used, but the will liber- 
ates and controls them. The will, then, in the first place, 
stands above and beyond the range of all causation, even in 
its most subtile forms, presented by nervous energies and 
influences. It descends upon and uses these, is not evolved 
by them. 

By the limitations now given, all reflex action, all auto- 
matic action, under the play of the senses and appetites, are, 
as physical states, excluded from the realm of liberty, are 
but the higher forms of physical action. Equally are those 
executive volitions which have received their impulse from 
above, those acts which follow directly an intellectual 
weighing of means, a balaiicing of probabilities, a delibera- 
tive movement which is a simple gathering and eddying of 
executive force looking for a new avenue, the best avenue, 
for advance, cut off from the freedom which attaches to 
choice. Having reached a point wholly unaffected by 
force, physical force, we are to inquire what are the condi- 
tions of liberty. The inducements to action in the will, lie 
, before it, not behind it ; they are motives, not causes. 
There is no opportunity for choice, for liberty, unless there 
are two or more of these, or as by successive rejection they 
at length assume the typical form, unless there are two mo- 
tives or lines of influence. Neither is there proper oppor- 
tunity for choice unless these two are distinct motives, sub- 



PRIMARY VOLITION, OR CHOICE. 503- 

ordinate to distinct ends. If the relation is one of means 
simply, purely, it is not an act of volition, of choice, but 
one of intellectual estimates, of judgment. As the word 
choice is applied both to selection and election, both to the 
purely mental act deciding on adaptations, and to the voli- 
tional act deciding between courses of conduct with differ- 
ent and independent moral characteristics, we easily con- 
found the two. These motives, then, must be present, and 
so present as to furnish a true alternative of action, — not a 
seeming one. Ten dollars as opposed to five dollars, as 
detached, single considerations, constitute to each other no 
sufficient, no true alternative. They are exactly of the 
same kind, and, in ordinary states of mind, there is no 
basis of action on which the less can be preferred to the 
greater, since that which gives value to five dollars, gives 
double value to ten dollars ; and to feel the first inducement 
without feeling the greater force of the second is simply to 
disclose a defective estimate, or an abnormal state either 
of the mind or of social wants. In all cases of which this is 
a type, there is no proper freedom. The mind can only 
choose the less valuable, the less desirable of things like in 
kind, by adding to the smaller inducement a distinct, fac- 
titious consideration, as that of evincing independence, or 
the exhibition of eccentricity. If, then, all motives are re- 
solvable at bottom into impulse, and measurable on one 
standard, we assert that there is no real liberty, but only 
that semblance presented by an intellectual inquiry into the 
intrinsic value of things, not bearing their sale-mark on 
them. 

§ 3. There is necessary to liberty not only two motives, 
but motives unlike in kind, resting back ultimately on dif- 
ferent principles, revealing different forms of good and 
phases of character. In other words, there is no choice 
without the moral element which can alone oppose itself to 
all varieties of physical good, and present a distinct ground 



304 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

of action, a reward, incommensurable with any sensual 
pleasure. The esthetical element indeed, as infused with 
ethical sentiment, may furnish a secondary feature in that 
contrast of action which gives a basis of choice. 

Two such motives being present, the' question returns, 
What is their relation to choice? We answer: they in- 
fluence the will, without in any sense controlling it, deter- 
mining it ; here we have reached the final, inexplicable 
thing, liberty. The will can, by its own power, take 
either of the two lines of action, to the rejection of the 
other ; can feel motives to any degree, yet refuse to yield 
to them. The will, with spontaneous independent power, 
initiates the one or the other of the two courses of action 
before it. Here is neither fatality nor chance, causation nor 
fortuity. The will feels, without submitting to motives, and 
discloses in itself a true beginning of action. 

§ 4. There is one view of liberty which needs to be 
guarded against, and in the rejection of it, we shall have 
defined sufficiently the conditions of choice. It is this. 
The will always does yield to the strongest motive, not of 
necessity, but as a fact. In the first place, this theory in- 
curs all the difficulties of the view, that the will does yield 
to either of the two motives by an impulse or decision rest- 
ing in itself alone, without its advantages. By motives in 
this discussion, we understand not simply their outward, ob- 
jective element, but the inner, subjective one as well, all 
in short that makes them motives. 

Influences are influences only through the susceptibilities 
on which they play, the desires they evoke. The one 
theory affirms that these motives may be spoken of as 
stronger and weaker, and that in each case of choice that 
motive prevails, though not necessarily, which is the strong- 
est. The other theory asserts such a distinction of motives 
is impertinent, and the will itself, in its freedom, is the 
sufficient and entire reason of the volition that follows. 



PRIMARY VOLITION, OR CHOICE. 305 

The mind, in the act of choice, is no more ruled by its 
own states than by external conditions. If it were, 
liberty would as certainly disappear, as if, in the outset, we 
placed the will within reach of the physical forces. We 
should do with two steps what we had refused to do with 
one. The present state of the sensibilities would be deter- 
mined by previous states, and these by constitutional en- 
dowments and external circumstances, and thus the threads 
of influence, the lines of causation, be at length lodged 
elsewhere than in the will. Each volition would be the 
fruit of conditions, which it itself had not determined, and 
thus be as certainly interlocked with the flow of forces as is 
the mill-wheel which revolves in the stream. The one 
theor)' evades this result by saying, that the stronger motive 
does control the will, yet not necessarily. The choice may 
be, though it never is, against it. The other denies the 
applicability of the conception, greater and less, and af- 
firms an absolute, unqualified freedom, findmg and seek- 
ing no explanation in the force of motives. 

This admission, that the will may choose the line of ac- 
tion supported by what is termed the weaker motive, in- 
volves philosophically all the difficulties of the view which 
represents it as alike independent of both incentives, and 
making either a true alternative to the other. There is no 
philosophical obstacle to supposing that the will does some- 
times do what it is admitted that it mxay do. The statement 
of an action as possible involves the concession of grounds 
sufficient to render it intelligible, if it should actually tran- 
spire. No law of mind can be violated by the happening 
of that which these laws suff"er us to regard as possible. 
We must rely on special reasons, not on general principles 
to establish the impossibility in given cases of that which 
we have granted to be a theoretic possibility. We can find, 
tnerefore, in philosophy alone no sufficient reason for say- 
ing in the same breath, that a thing may be, and denying 



306 ■ PRIXCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

that it ever will be. The last assertion must rest on some 
special, empirical reason ; since the first assertion sweeps 
the ground of philosophy and says, that there is nothing to 
prevent i-t. Our philosophy, then, as philosophy, is no more 
encumbered with the assertion, that the will does choose, 
than with the declaration, it may choose, either alternative. 
The general principles which admit the one statement, will 
cover the other. The fact, that an admitted possibility 
never does become actual, must be established, if estab- 
lished at all, on special reasons peculiar to each case. If 
there were a general principle or law against the action, it 
would not remain possible. 

Moreover this theory establishes an inductive law, of the 
strongest possible character, against itself. Admittedly, 
the weakest motive, so termed, never is chosen. There is 
an absolutely uniform line of action in innumerable and 
most diversified cases. No law of induction is established 
on stronger grounds. Yet, when we are just about to 
reach the conclusion, that what, under no circumstances, 
is or ever will be, is an action excluded by the very nature 
and method of the forces at work, we are suddenly bidden 
to face around with the very unexpected assertion, the 
choice under discussion is one that may constantly be 
made. On what ground does this odd inversion rest ? Not 
on that of experience, of induction, for this line of argument 
prepares the way with well-nigh irresistible power, for exact- 
ly the opposite statement. Not on philosophical principles, 
for, as previously shown, these principles would, if unre- 
stricted by experience, unmodified by special reasons, show 
that what may at any time happen, probably, under the in- 
exhaustible variety of circumstances presented by human 
life, will happen. This assertion, then, that the will may, 
but never does, choose the weaker motive, grounds itself 
neither on experience nor philosophy. It is a self-destruc- 
tive affirmation under either view of it. 



PRIMARY VOLITION, OR CHOICE. 307 

§ 5, Again, to what a mere shadow does it reduce lib- 
erty. We are free by virtue of a power never put forth. 
If we could not accept the rejected alternative, we should 
not be free ; yet, one of the two alternatives always, before 
choice, stands in such relation to the will, that it never ac- 
cepts it. The action of the will is practically as fixed by 
antecedent condition as any line of causation. One might 
as well claim that a python should walk, on the ground of 
certain rudimentary limbs said to be hidden under its skin, 
as to annex all the fearful consequences of sin to such a 
hypothetical power as this — a power that has never found 
exercise, subserves no practical purpose, and is only pos- 
sessed of a metaphysical existence. To sustain the pon- 
derous chain of sin, its interlocked links reaching through 
all eternity, its galling weight crushing the life of myriads, 
— by so theoretical and fanciful a support, can certainly 
never subserve the purposes of actual government. 

Farther, a will of this sort, is wholly superfluous. If mo- 
tives have superior efficiency, and this efficiency is always 
yielded to, why should any volition intervene } There is a 
power present, able to secure action, and that does secure 
the action that actually follows. Why should not this sur- 
plus of power, this over-balance of influence, be left in an 
immediate, precise, inevitable way to reach its own results. 
Are we to insert another wheel, in itself of no practical ac- 
count, only that we may band to it the moral universe, and 
assert responsibility .? If so, let us, in the name of virtue 
and honesty, give it some other office than that of simply 
propagating, bearing inward, a power already existing in 
completeness in the motive. To deal thus subtly with one's 
moral judgments, to practise upon them with these evanes- 
cent distinctions and cunning subterfuges of words, itself, I 
had almost said, approaches wickedness. 

§ 6. Whence springs this distinction of motives into 
stronger and weaker, but from a false analogy with the forces 



3o8 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

of the physical world ? We are not to attach to the word 
influence a definite, measurable power capable of numer- 
ical comparison with like powers. If our pleasures were 
all referable to one sensorium, something of this sort might 
be admissible. But they are not. A moral gratification 
can be expressed in no terms of greater and less with a sen- 
sual indulgence. Were it not for our higher, our moral, 
our rational nature ; were we wholly physical, the condi- 
tions of liberty would indeed disappear. We might weigh 
the claims of the senses, assign a numerical value to indul- 
gences, and trace the rise and fall of motion along this new 
meter of the appetites. But nothing of this is possible, 
no approximate estimates of pleasure are possible, when the 
moral nature enters into the calculation ; when the supreme 
claims of conscience afibrd a full and fair alternative to every 
degree and form of self-indulgence. We should have no 
occasion for freedom, were it not for the self-imposed law of 
the moral nature, and in issuing a command, it also gives 
the conditions of that liberty which enables us to obey it. 
There is no such final reference of motives to the same or 
like sensibilities, by which we are able to pronounce them 
greater or less. There is no common term or point be- 
tween mere pleasure and duty. We cannot take the plea- 
sure of a glass of wine from a sense of obligation, and give 
a numerical remainder. 

But if there is no antecedent standard by which motives 
may be measured, it is a mere circle of words to call that 
the strongest motive which does prevail, and then to repeat 
the assertion made, in the form, the will always chooses the 
strongest motive. There must be antecedent measure- 
ment, and there is no such measurement, or our language 
means nothing. 

This view overlooks the office of the moral nature, the 
transcendent purchase and power that it gives to choice. It 
confounds simple, intellectual discrimination between en- 



PRIMARY VOLITION, OR CHOICE. 309 

joyments, or, still worse, a certain automatic adjustment 
and balance between animal impulses with choice. Liberty 
ieeps aloof from this lower region. It reposes on e.x:tend- 
ed wing in the upper air of our rational, intuitive powers 
and emotions. There is, and of necessity must be, a mo- 
ral character to every true act of choice, since the higher 
impulses must enter to break up and rule out these mathe- 
matical estimates of greater and less, these automatic ad- 
justments of influences essentially one. 

The sense of guilt which accompanies a moral struggle, 
sustains the view we have presented. If the guilty party 
could feel, that he had yielded to the strongest motive, that 
a balance had been cast up between motives, and he had ac- 
cepted the largest sum proffered, the sense of condemna- 
tion and shame would be very different from what it now 
is. In proportion, however, as the transcendent, unmea- 
surable character of virtue is present to the mind, are the 
accompanying moral struggle and the subsequent sense of 
guilt, strong and bitter. The more declared the sin, the 
more clear the knowledge of the high nature of the things 
rejected. It is the increase of light and motive, not their 
decrease, which evokes the forces of moral retribution. 
The mind is not allowed to say to itself, to console itself, 
with the assertion, that at the time and under the circum- 
stances, it actually chose the strongest pleasure, the highest 
good. Its infinite folly, its unaccountable guilt are enforced 
upon it, not its sad mistake, its grave misjudgment. 

§ 7. Against the notion of liberty, absolute and com- 
plete, now presented, it may be urged, that it admits of no 
control, that its action cannot be anticipated, and hence 
provided for. Now liberty is limited to the alternatives be- 
fore it. It cannot choose anything but only one of two 
things, and it is unsafe to give the opportunity of choice, 
when we are not ready for the acceptance of either of the 
things offered. Liberty is simply a larger field of activity, 



3IO PRIN'CIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the opening of two lines of activity instead of one, and 
this is often found very easy, even for man in his control 
and management of his fellows. It does, indeed, make of 
government an higher art, but does not, in skillful hands, 
take away its perfect efficiency, all the efficiency contem- 
plated. 

Liberty provides for less, recognizes less, of a certain 
sort of efficiency, than does slavery. The inevitable, me- 
chanical movement of necessary forces is, indeed, lost ; but 
there is substituted a nobler movement, because it is a freer 
one, manageable in a difterent' measure, and on different 
principles. Those who prefer the clang and ceaseless on- 
going of machinery, may not be pleased ; but the product 
itself, nevertheless, is every way superior. 

Moreover, will is constantly declaring itself of its own 
liberty, establishing a movement and revealing a character, 
more and more manifest to those who have to deal with it. 
The virtue of a virtuous man does not cease to be free, nor 
the vice of a vicious man, because the choice of each is not 
momentarily altered. A free action remains free, no mat- 
ter how far pursued, and those impulses of the rational life 
once revealed, become more and more declared and fixed 
in their directions. The conduct of a perfectly virtuous 
being is among the most calculable forces in the whole uni- 
verse, and this without the least loss of freedom. We 
manage events readily which turn on moral evidence, yet 
the connections are not absolute, are not seen by us to be 
certain. There is the same difference between causation and 
liberty, as between demonstration and evidence, proof and 
argument. Each subserves a feasible, practical purpose. 

It may be farther objected, that liberty so defined is syno- 
nymous with chance. It is not. The ground of action — 
and there remains a most adequate and complete ground — 
is simply transferred from the motives to the will, from the 
outside to the inside, from secondary' and causal agents to 



PRIMARY VOLITION, OR CHOICE. 3 II 

a primar)^ and independent one. We must, indeed, give 
up all hope of conceiving this under forms of the imagina- 
tion, or, of the understanding, through analogical judg- 
ments ; but let alone, it is just as intelligible, as red, or 
sweet, or hard, or as causation itself, which, for some in- 
scrutable reason, seems to be thought by many to be so 
perfectly translucent, so fluid and penetrative a notion as to 
be the only proper solvent for everything else. If we could 
get over the futile feeling that everything must be like 
something else, a habit of mind confirmed by physical in- 
quiry, we should have no more theoretical, than we have 
practical, difficulty with liberty, claiming hourly its friUest 
consequences from child and adult, from friend and foe. 

§ 8. What are the proofs of the existence of the power 
of choice as now defined .? Our analysis, our rejection of 
this and that explanation as insufficient, have pro- 
ceeded on the claims of an intuitive notion. This we 
have striven to preserve from statements which would limit 
or destroy it. We have denied the conclusion which 
seemed incompatible with perfect freedom, which furtively 
subjected the mind once more to the same forces which 
drive the world. Our proof of the existence of this power 
is not found directly in consciousness. If it were, the 
question would hardly admit of dispute. The evidence of 
consciousness is negative rather than positive. We are con- 
scious of the presence of motives, that is, antecedent feel- 
ings ; we are conscio us of volition, these are phenomenal ; 
we are not conscious of the connection between the two, 
this is not phenomenal. We are negatively, indeed, aware 
of no restraint ; our volitions seem to be, what we affirm 
they are, free. But consciousness does not directly settle 
this question, for the sufficient reason, that freedom is not a 
phenomenon, but the ground or condition, or form of a 
phenomenon, and hence it does not immediately arise in 



312 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

consciousness, but is only inferable from what is there 
present. 

The occasion of this inference is found in our moral 
nature. Laws are constantly imposed on our actions by 
ourselves, by others, and our moral sense justifies them. 
The record of history and of individual life everywhere pre- 
sents them, and hourly, momentarily demands them. 
Now no law, no command can be imposed on a being 
that is not free. The only law to which such a being can 
be subjected, is a physical law, working in, under, through 
it. A moral law above it, before it, is an absurdity; and, if 
followed by punishment, is most cruel, unless it is based 
upon the power of obedience, unless the individual can 
conform to it. 

Hence those who are consistent vnth themselves, who 
logically accept the consequences of their own doctrines, 
utterly subvert the phenomena, the facts of the moral 
world, and give an entirely new rendering of them as a 
consequence of their denial of liberty. Says Bain, in T/ie 
Emotions and The Will : " Under a certain motive, as hun- 
ger, I act m a certain way, taking the food that is before 
me, going where I shall be fed, or performing some other 
preliminary condition. The sequence is simple and clear 
when so expressed ; bring in the idea of freedom, and 
there is instantly a chaos, imbroglio, or jumble. What is 
to be said, therefore, is that this idea ought never to have 
come into the theoretical explanation of the will, and 
ought now to be summarily expelled." Again, " the word 
choice is one of the modes of designating the supposed 
.liberty of voluntary actions. The real meaning, that is to 
say, the only real fact that can be pointed at in correspond- 
ence with it, is the acting out one of several different 
promptings. When a person purchases an article out ot 
several submitted to view, the recon>niendations of thai 
one are said to be greater than of the rest, and nothing 



PRIMARY VOLITION, OR CHOICE. 313 

more needs really be said in describing the transaction. It 
may happen for a moment the opposing attractions are 
exactly balanced, and decision suspended thereby. The 
equipoise may even continue for a length of time, but 
when the decision is actually come to, the fact and the 
meaning are that some consideration has arisen to the 
mind, giving a superior energy of motive to the side that 
has preponderated. This is the whole substance of the 
act of choosing. The designation, liberty of choice, has 
no real meaning, except as denying extraneous interference. " 
In the same line, he continues, ' ' The term responsibility, 
is a figurative expression of the kind called by writers on 
rhetoric, 'metonomy ' where a thing is named by some of 
its causes, eifects, or adjuncts, as when the crown is put 
for royalty, the mitre for episcopacy, &c. Seeing that in 
every country where forms of justice have been established, a 
criminal is allowed to answer the charge made against him, 
before he is punished, this circumstance has been taken up, 
and used to designate punishment. We shall find it con- 
duce to clearness to put aside the figure, and employ the 
literal term. Instead, therefore, of responsibility, I shall 
substitute punishability ; for a man can never be said to be 
responsible, if you are not prepared to punish him, when 
he cannot satisfactorily answer the charges made against 
him." In another passage, he gives concisely his notion 
of the method of moral suasion. "There is one form of 
stating the fact of ability that brings us face to face with 
the great metaphysical puzzle. It not uncommonly happens 
that a delinquent pleads his moral weakness in justification 
of his offence. The school-boy whose animal spirits 
carry him to a breach of decorum, or whose anger has 
made him do violence on a school-fellow, will sometimes 
defend himself by saying he was carried away, and could 
not restrain himself In other words, he makes out a case 
closely allied to physical compulsion. He is sometimes 



314 PRI^'CIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

answered by saying, that he could have restrained himself 
if he had chosen, willed, or sufficiently wished to do so. 
Such an answer is really a puzzle or paradox, and must 
mean something very different from what is apparently ex- 
pressed. The fact is, that the offender was in a state of 
mind such that his conduct followed according to the uni- 
formity of his being, and if the same antecedents were ex-' 
actly repeated, the same consequent would certainly be re- 
produced. In that view, therefore, the foregoing answer is 
irrelevant, not to say nonsensical. The proper form, and 
the practical meaning to be conveyed, is this : It is true, 
that as your feelings then stood, your conduct resulted as it 
did ; but I am now to deal with you in such a way, that 
when the situation recurs, new feelings and motives will be 
present, sufficient, I hope, to issue differently. I now pun- 
ish you, or threaten you, or admonish you in order that an 
antecedent motive may enter into your mind, as a counter- 
action to your animal spirits or temper on another occa- 
sion, seeing that, acting as you did, you were plainly in 
want of such a motive. I am determined that your con- 
duct shall be reformed, and therefore every time that you 
make such a lapse, I will supply more and more incentives 
in favor of what is your duty." 

Here is consistency. Mr. Bain has determined that there 
is no freedom ; nay, that the notion is an invalid and ab- 
surd one, and hence he pushes his theory right over the 
convictions of men expressed in the most unmistakable, 
universal and constant use of language. He says to him- 
self, the line of my road lies through yonder hill, and he 
buries his engine up to the furnace in the soil in the vain 
effort to drive it through. As we have undertaken only the 
easier and more modest task of explaining, instead of over- 
throwing, the universal facts of mind, we must needs believe 
that the world, wise and ignorant, have not whistled to the 
wind in talking about freedom, choice, responsibility, and 



PRIMARY VOLITIOi;, OR CHOICE. 315 

in constructing the frame-work of private, social and reli- 
gious life upon them. In the above theory, there is the 
entire transformation, the utter overthrow of the very fami- 
liar facts of hourly life, that seek our explanation. The 
language we apply to them is all wrong. There is no pro- 
per guilt or punishment, virtue or reward. There is no 
law, as we use the word in social and ethical discussions ; 
all is ultimately resolvable into physical force. The man 
indeed, like the brute, can be reached on two sides instead 
of one. He can be pushed, guided from behind, and, 
through the mirror of the mind, can be invited, influenced 
by things yet before him. As, by ingenious reflection, rays 
that do not directly fall upon the object, are thrown upon 
it, so forces not yet realized, are flung by anticipation, by 
the reflection of thought on the mind, and become present 
powers working vital results in the brain. To lay a com- 
mand, therefore, as conscience does, and furnish, for its ex- 
ecution, no forces, promise no pleasures, threaten no pains, 
as the immediate results of obedience or disobedience, is, 
according to the above view, absurd, is to furnish the plan 
of a noble edifice, and provide no workmen to put it up. 
There is, on this theory, no more moral law than when I 
flourish a whip in the face of a restive ox, or apply it to his 
tough hide. The actions are essentially one ; the first 
brings the anticipation of pain, and the second, actual 
pain. 

In the passages quoted, there is an undersigned confes- 
sion that the author can make nothing of true moral phe- 
nomena, of moral law, and has, therefore, put in their 
place a gross caricature, at war with the form and language 
of our daily life. We do treat the brute and the man very 
differently, and the more diversely, as we are the more in- 
telligent. We furnish an influence, an incentive for the 
•one, we claim its existence in the other. We provide for 
obedience here, we demand it there ; we give the sharp in- 



3l6 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tonation here, we simply state the law in its imperial power 
there. We accept as complete the service which fear has 
brought here ; there we despise it, as no solution of the 
claims of right on the soul. Bain gives the theory of brute 
life, we are striving to give that of rational life. If a true, 
moral command is ever uttered from within, or from with- 
out, rightfully to man, liberty, the power to obey it, is im- 
plied therein. 

§ 9. The second portion of the proof of liberty, without 
which the first would be incomplete, is the fact, that the 
mind does spontaneously, inevitably place this notion of 
liberty back of human, responsible action as its explanation. 
Our conclusion is the conclusion of the race ; just as cer- 
tainly, universally, inevitably as in any judgment what- 
ever, made by us. We no more necessarily refer an 
effect to a cause, than we do responsibility to liberty ; and 
responsibility we universally claim of others. It remains to 
be shown, that any man has ever lived, who has not be- 
lieved in the guilt of his neighbor ; it is axiomatic in prac- 
tical morals, that guilt is commensurate with power. Every 
excuse and apology presuppose it. The full form, then, 
of the proof of the existence of freedom is found in the dou- 
ble fact, that we universally lay moral claims upon others, 
and that we justify ourselves in so doing, by attributing lib- 
erty to them. There is a large class of familiar and unde- 
niable facts which the mind constantly, pertinaciously ex- 
plains by an assertion of its power of choice. The ditli- 
culty of philosophers in analyzing it, their perplexities over 
it, their escape by denials of it, are no more proofs against 
it, than the like treatment of the mind's action in a dozen 
other directions. The spontaneous, certain, ever-recurring 
action of the mind is the proof we have of liberty, and the 
only proof we have for anything our faculties offer us. We 
see and see again, till we believe that we see. We think 
and think again, till we accept our thought. 



DYNAMICS OF THE WILL AND OF THE MIND. 317 

CHAPTER IV. 
Dynamics of the Will, and of the Mind. 

§ I. The will is so nearly single, that little is to be said 
of the form of its activity. There is but one line of exertion, 
the executive volitions resting back on a choice. This en- 
dures as a permanent impulse, and finds execution in min- 
gled, voluntary and vital action. From what has been 
said, it is evident that animals are destitute of freedom, of 
cU proper power of choice. Their action is the unconscio us, 
involuntary resolution of feelings and physical states into 
muscular impulse. The feelings which arise in conscious- 
ness are as directly and automatically connected with action 
as those physical states which never there present them- 
selves, but, in the darkness and concealment of a purely 
vital force, accomplish their purpose. 

The will is strengthened chiefly by use, and that not 
alone by its own activity, but, perhaps, even more by the 
restraint and check thus imposed on the passions and appe- 
tites. Those, allowed control for any length of time, as- 
sume so domineering and persistent a form, that the will 
regains only with the utmost dififculty, the ground that it 
has lost. This minor anarchy of the soul is, of all forms 
of confusion, the least susceptible of a remedy, as aid can- 
not come from abroad, and the chronic weakness of the 
powers that offer resistance to the mob of impulses, and es- 
tablish authority over them, speedily passes beyond all cure. 
Some sudden shock of the moral nature, in rare cases the 
awakening of a strong desire, is the only spring of hope. 

In speaking of the activities of the mind as a whole, we 
are to remember, that these bear by no means the same 
proportion to each other in different individuals. Not only 
are specific, intellectual endowments and feelings diverse 



^iS PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

in power, the three classes of activities present various de- 
grees of development. In one, intellectual effort absorbs 
the mind ; in another, the emotions are the chief seats of 
action ; while a third is possessed of a will that lapses into 
stubbornness, through the inefficiency of the thoughts in 
its guidance. Moreover, different temperaments cause 
essentially the same faculties to exhibit very different de- 
grees of force. The nutritive and the nervous systems are 
most intimately associated with the mind. Great impressi- 
bility and power in the nervous organization ; the same 
impressibility with less power ; a preponderance of the nu- 
tritive functions giving a full animal life ; nervous power 
well-balanced and well-sustained by the nutritive system, 
are distinct, physical conditions, which greatly modify the 
measure, hopefulness, and satisfactionof intellectual efforts, 
resting back on natural endowments of mind ver)'- nearly 
the same. As the body is at once the medium by which 
impressions reach the mind, the source whence the strength 
for their consideration is secured, and the instrument by 
which its practical and theoretical conclusions concerning 
them are expressed, the importance of the physical condi- 
tions of mental activity cannot easily be over-stated, nor be 
too carefully inquired into. These researches, however, 
pertain chiefly to physiology. It is our task to trace the 
strictly mental interplay of the faculties, a dependence, not 
the result of purely physical connections. 

§ 2. Thought, feeling and volition, express the order 
in which action occurs, the line along which any influence 
brought to bear on the mind, passes through its faculties. 

Yet these three steps, though usual, are not all neces- 
sary. Through sensation, feeling may be directly occa- 
sioned, and activity immediately follow from it, yet this is 
of an involuntary character. Thought accompanies, unites 
feeling and volition, points out the present relation of 
things, and guides them to the right use of means. 



DYNAMICS OF THE WILL AND OF THE MIND. 319 

While the first movement is in the direction now indicated, 
there are reflex influences of an opposite character. The 
feelings affect strongly the thoughts. They direct attention 
to pleasing objects, fasten the faculties upon them, and thus 
intensify' the emotions already established. The candor 
and fairness of the judgment are lost through this influence 
of the feelings, withdrawing attention from facts displeasing 
to them, and minutely and laboriously searching out those 
which maintain and justify their action. Unusual intellec- 
tual and moral development is required on the part of one 
possessed of strong feelings, to reach even ordinary impar- 
tiality, and to give any considerable weight to reasons for 
action opposed to the inclinations. The intellect thus 
becomes the instrument of the feelings, using all its acute- 
ness, its power of representation, perversion, and one-sided 
argumentation in behalf of conclusions already reached 
by the heart. When the intellect is thus the sagacious 
counsellor, the cunning attorney of the emotions, the dis- 
tortions of truth are proportioned to its strength, and the 
most powerful thinking is productive only of misleading 
sophism. 

The feelings, in the same way, frequently engage the 
will, and the man becomes obstinate, headstrong, willful in 
the line of action indicated by them. There is no de- 
fence against this, but that quick moral sense, which re- 
sponds with an adequate alternative to the selfish sugges- 
tions of the mind, and introduces a calm consideration of . 
the claims of duty into each case. The only sufficient re- 
sistance to this domination which strong feelings, headlong 
desires are sure to assume over the intellect and the will, 
through the one evoking all the imagery which influences 
passion, and the reasons which justify it, and through the 
other imparting a haste and momentum to action which 
at once clear the way of all ordinary obstacles, and render 
the onset easy and retreat difficult, is afforded by the moral 



320 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

nature calming feeling, soliciting candor, and holding the 
will in the leash of duty. 

Government in the mind is not than self-evolved, is not 
the spontaneous inter-action of forces graded to their tasks, 
but is found in the direct, authoritative claims of a law- 
giving power. The order of the mind is moral, not 
natural ; one of command and obedience, and not of self- 
poised powers ; one to be discerned and pursued, not one 
to be developed. The disorder of transgression discovers 
itself, not in faculties lost, not in addition to, or subtraction 
from, the original powers of the mind, but in that dispro- 
portionate development among them which is the fruit of 
anarchy, of usurpation on the one side, and overthrow on 
the other. 

§ 3. If we look at the influences at work on any one 
mind, at any one time to make it what it is, there seems to 
be in it very little power of resistance or modification. The 
thoughts take such partial and justifying views of action, so 
blind themselves to the future results, and even the imme- 
diate consequences of conduct, so misrender and misinterpret 
facts ; the feelings so reward and maintain indulgence, cast 
such disfavor and so repulsive an atmosphere over every 
form of restraint, choke up the path of reform with so 
many imaginary difficulties, and find the accustomed way 
so open, so easy, so inevitable ; the will submits so easily 
where it is wont to submit, is so reluctant to open a new 
conflict, and so weak to resist the impatient, persistent, and 
domineering passions and appetites, that swarm in troops 
around it at every suggestion of change, that much modi- 
• fication of character established in its springs and condi- 
tions of action seem to us impossible. Indeed, only the 
breaking in of an earthquake power is able to alter and re- 
direct the channels in which the activities of the soul are 
flowing. 

If, however, we look at long periods, we see that there 



DYNAMICS OF THE WILL AND OF THE MIND. 32 1 

is a supreme control of the will over the mind. Single 
changes that in the outset are alien to the general move- 
ment, prepare the way for others. New thoughts give rise 
to new feelings, and these slowly displace the old ; the ac- 
tivity induced iii fresh pursuits establishes and strengthens 
the will, and sets gradually at work varied reflex forces, 
giving different external and internal conditions, new feel- 
ings, motives and rewards of effort. At length, the mind 
accepts spontaneously the changed form of life, the old 
channel is deserted, and a complete transformation is 
achieved. There is a momentum in mind which prevents 
its movements becoming wayward and fitful, and yet there 
is present a force which can slowly and certainly bend 
them in any direction it chooses. 

§ 4. The feelings are plainly most central and impor- 
tant in the constitution of the mind. Here is the seat of 
pleasure, of enjoyment, of all good. Thence spring the 
motives which influence the will, which offer its alterna- 
tives, and thither return the fruits of choice — fresh gratifi- 
cations with accompanying incentives to effort. The in- 
tellect is scarcely less instrumental to the emotions. It 
multiplies its resources that these may be nourished ; it 
fills it canvas with figures that these may be profoundly 
moved. The emotions are sooner or later endowed with 
all the treasures of thought, and the painter, the poet, all 
who can accomplish this transfer most quickly, skillfully, 
perfectly, become the chief artists in human society. The 
merchant, the inventor, labor for grosser forms of trans- 
mutation, the artist for higher, the true hero, for the high- 
est. Ife alone lifts thought into the moral sublimity of an 
actual life, that is integral with the triumph of order — the 
ample victory of the law of freedom in the universe of 
God. 

As the impulses to action spring from the feelings, and 
the fruits of a ction return to them ; as the value of know- 



322 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGT. 

ledge is found in the pleasure, power, guidance, it affords, 
it is evident that happiness must depend on the predomi- 
nant emotions. Out of the heart are the issues of life. 
The physical feelings, the appetites, are primitive sources 
of pleasure ; yet they are necessarily intermittent, and can 
be made safely to occupy but a small part of the time 
which falls to us. Moreover, their permanent enjoyment 
depends on physical vigor, and this must be maintained by 
that temperance, by that well-regulated activity which sets 
these enjoyments still further limits. It is only on the 
condition of making the appetites secondary, incidental 
sources of good, that they can at all maintain their position 
as safe and just means of pleasure. 

The intellectual feelings, the desires, are, indeed, capable 
of incessant activity, yet fail of conferring a sufficient and 
permanent good. There is not that repose in them, that 
perfect reaction of gratification on the appetitive desire 
which arrests it in complete indulgence. These intellectual 
impulses become rather increasingly exorbitant in their 
claims, fling us ever forward in search of the unattained, 
and leave us restless and unsatisfied with every acquisition 
actually secured. If we check the desire, we are immedi- 
ately thrown back on other sources of good ; it fails any 
longer to maintain our active powers, and call forth our 
hopes. We must once again put to ourselves the question, 
What are these grounds, these sources of independent 
pleasure, of which at length, with the means in our hands 
that wealth, power, and rank confer, we are to avail our- 
selves in reaching complete and permanent happiness .'' If, 
on the other hand, we steadily inflame and expand the de- 
sire, we are fed on promises never realized, we are driven 
from one round of activity to another. We spread a feast, 
but have no time to partake of it, or, beginning to partake, 
are disappointed in its quality. The good is not in it we 
thought to be there, and we are driven to the hopeless ex- 



DYNAMICS OF THTE WILL AND OF THE MIND. 323 

pedient of still farther enlarging our board, enriching our 
service, and multiplying our viands. It thus not unfre- 
quently happens, that the appetites decrease in the ratio in 
which the means of their gratification increase, and, at 
length, under this ever-returning experience, we discover 
that desires are wearing us out with unrequited labor ; that 
the coin is indeed paid into the hand, but that it has lost 
its purchasing power ; that we have served for Rachel, and 
that Leah has been given us. 

The rational feelings, on the contrary, yield adequate and 
supreme pleasure, for several reasons. The higher intui- 
tions call forth emotions which are of a primitive and per- 
manent character ; unlike the appetites, they may accom- 
pany our every action with subdued pleasure, or with the 
swell of buoyant emotion. They may give way to outside, 
incidental enjoyments, and yet return to us as the under- 
tone of a steady and protracted harmony. Moreover, 
there is repose in them. The taste, the ethical sense 
are filled with the satisfaction which beauty and virtue 
afford ; without stimulating an excessive activity, they mo- 
mentarily reward it. It is not a good in advance, so much 
as one in possession, that gives to the contemplation of 
beauty, of physical and moral excellence, a supreme and 
abiding pleasure. The concurrent reward and stimulus of 
the faculties, take from them the intense thirst of desire, 
the restless, insatiate longing of intellectual emotions, ex- 
panding the circle each instant, and finding it forever 
made up of the same futile pleasures in greater multi- 
plicity. 
- Again, the rational gratifications increase in scope and in 
purity of tone. They arise from intellections which, with 
the growth of mind, become broader, more varied and 
more just. They yield, therefore, to the esthetical and 
moral sense, more extended, harmonious, and profound 
impressions. No one exhausts art, no one measures the 



324 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

resources of virtue, nor makes barren to the contemplation 
those plans and that providence which are working the world 
up, with all its stubborn and refractory materials, into a 
perfect and permanent product of religious art. 

These pleasures owe their high character also to the ex- 
tent in which they combine and blend all the activities of 
the triple powers of man. The intellect is most active in 
preparing the conditions, in giving the grounds of esthe- 
tical and ethical intuitions, while the intuitions combine in- 
separably perception and emotion. To see the beautiful 
and the good is to feel their power. Nor is the will inac- 
tive. Under the surface of the mind, fully occupied with 
these noblest objects of contemplation, there flows a steady 
purpose to conform all action to them, never to mar them, 
to win them by becoming a part of them. Here is doubt- 
less the secret of the repose, the rest of art and virtue, that 
they remove all conflict from our powers, and blend them 
in satisfied and indivisible activity. This is not asserted of 
art as divorced from virtue, but of art as the highest em- 
bodiment of rational life, of virtue. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Relations of the System here offered^ to the Prevalent 
Forms of Philosophy. 

§ I. The inquiries of broadest outside and inside inter- 
est as regards any system of philosophy are : How does it 
unite the intellectual and physical world ? Which, if either, 
does it absorb in the other ? By what laws does it hold the 
balance between them ? What is with it the pregnant, on- 
tological principles ? The philosophy now offered strives 
to maintain, so far as man is concerned, physical and men- 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 325 

tal phenomena on an independent basis ; so far as God is 
concerned, centres and absorbs them both in Him. It 
thus endeavors to explain the constant, the famiUar facts 
of experience, not as a vision, delusive in its form ; but 
as the substantial, sufficient frame-work of knowledge. 
It does not by thought abolish that which called forth 
thought, but retains entire the phenomena it seeks to ex- 
plain. Indeed, it is difiicult to see on what ground the 
reasoning of a few is to be accepted, which overturns fun- 
damentally the conclusions of the many concerning facts 
of which each is independently cognizant. To yield our 
faith to such theories seems to be a surrender of the trust- 
worthiness of our faculties, since, with almost perfect unan- 
imity and endless reiteration, they have reached results ex- 
actly opposite to those thus offered. Nor is it an answer to 
this statement to say, that such a submission of the philo- 
sophical to the common mind, precludes progress. It does 
not preclude the addidon of nev/ facts, a more careful an- 
alysis of old facts, with the correction of opinions that is 
sure to follow. It does cast suspicion on a movement 
which pre-supposes the entire error and deceptiveness 
of all spontaneous convictions, which denies the validity of 
every conclusion but its own, and will not go to the com- 
mon mind for the facts even that seek statement and ex- 
planation ; for the facts without which there could be no 
philosophy. Such theories shake centrally the structure of 
knowledge, and lead to a complete distrust of those facul- 
ties which have been so signally, so universally, so com- 
pletely wrong in directions wholly open to their action. To 
make one, two, three mistakes, and retain confidence is 
possible, to affirm that everything hitherto has been a mis- 
take, is to reflect the most gloomy uncertainty on our pre- 
sent conclusions, which have no other verification than that 
they are the last results of faculties hitherto always at 
fault. 



326" PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

That a system of philosophy Hes, in the main, in the Una 
of recognized conclusions, gathering up, harmonizing and 
expounding them, furnishes the same evidence of its truth 
as that afforded to a physical theory by the fact, that it 
easily includes and explains the facts under discussion ; or 
to a social theory, by the fact, that it recognizes and makes 
clear, events of hourly occurrence. Nor is it sufficient to 
give alleged reasons why men have been mistaken ; uni- 
versal and complete mistake is an impeachment of the 
mind whose consequences cannot be evaded. 

We postulate in the system now presented, the trustwor- 
thiness of all our faculties in their careful, corrected, legit- 
imate exercise ; and accept as proof of a faculty or power, 
steady, reiterative action in any direction, yielding fruits of 
knowledge. What we see and hear, we accept as seen and 
heard, because our faculties are self-consistent and persis- 
tent in the affirmation. They renew the impressions in the 
same form on each like occasion. For a like reason we 
accept the conclusions of judgment. If we reached a differ- 
ent result each time we reviewed the proof of a proposi- 
tion, we should trust no one of our conclusions. We be- 
lieve what we believe, because the mind, on repeated in- 
quiry, on repeated investigation, arrives again and again at 
the same convictions. Thus is it with memory. We are 
uncertain when we find inconsistent and changeable im- 
pressions arising ; we are certain when the faculty restores 
the same image on each occasion. We start with no a 
priori theory as to what faculties the mind can have. We 
recognize as a fict that it does do what it seems to do, and 
■ take as a suf.icicnt and ultimate proof of its power to do, 
and do correctly anything, to impart and impart correctly 
any knowledge, the observed fact, that it does do this re- 
peatedly and consistently. We cannot, therefore, accept 
the existence of the notion of causation, and recognize the 
constant use which the mind makes of it, and at the same 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 327 

•time affirm it to be wholly illusory and deceptive. The ad- 
mitted fact establishes by and of itself, a power of mind to 
discern and employ this notion, and is thus an ultimate 
and sufficient proof of the correctness of such a notion, of 
the value of the service rendered by it. We should as soon 
say, the mind insists that it sees, insists that it thinks, but 
the idea is fanciful ; as to say, the mind persists in assigning 
causes, but it has no ground for such assignment. The 
simple fact, that it does persistently assign them, is all the 
proof we require, is all the proof we are resting on in any 
department of knowledge. 

We postulate, then, the assertions, that the mind does 
what it does by virtue of a power of doing it, and that the 
habitual, enumerated conclusions of a power are evidence, 
sufficient evidence, and the only possible evidence of its 
existence and their own truth. If the mind supplies ideas, 
discusses, uses them, in a steady uniform office ; ideas 
which the senses alone cannot reach, then this fact is satis- 
factory proof, that these ideas, like sensation, colors, tastes, 
sounds, rest back on a distinct faculty, and are sufficiently 
verified by that faculty. The philosophy here presented, 
bridges the chasm between mind and matter, not by direct 
sensation, but indirectly, by intuitive ideas, whose presence 
gives occasion to the discussion, and makes it intelligible to 
us. In pronouncing so authoritatively, as some do, that 
matter is cut off hopelessly from mind, that there can be no 
communication between them, they seem to contradict their 
own statement ; since the mind is dealing with matter in 
the very affirmation by which it declares matter to be un- 
approachable. It is not, then, with the idea of matter, 
that the mind finds difficulty. This it works with in all its 
theories, and discovers nothing in it self-destructive, or de- 
structive to the notion of mind. Whether, however, this 
idea, so manageable within the mind, has any outward 
thing that corresponds with it, is a question of simple 



32? PRIXCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

proof, and if such proof be present, yields no new perplex- 
ity. If the mind can in thought handle things so unlike 
itself as natural objects, it can also recognize their actual 
being on sufficient evidence. But it is said, there can bo 
no such evidence, for such evidence implies not an ideal, 
but an actual influence of matter on mind. Is there, then, 
a clear a priori impossibility, that there should be found in 
the phenomena of mind such traces of the influences of 
matter, as to furnish the grounds for an inference of its ex- 
istence. To the ordinary mind this question presents not 
the least difficulty. To it, sensations, perceptions, are 
plainly such traces. But, says one who has longer contem- 
plated the problem, is not space the condition of all ma- 
terial being, and is not this the one form which has no ac- 
tual relevance to acts of mind .-' Is not consciousness the 
essential characteristic of thought, and does not this in turn 
exclude altogether physical forces. How then shall a material 
force strike within consciousness, or how shall a mental ac- 
tivity leave it to appear in space ? Here undoubtedly our 
powers of explanation are at fault. The inquiries put us, 
lie too deep in the secret nature, the unphenomenal nature 
of things to admit of that phenomenal statement or ex- 
planation which is sought for. Indeed, in the very lan- 
guage in which our queries are urged, we have over-leaped 
the limits of clear thought. In speaking of a mental ac- 
tivity as leaving consciousness, or a physical force as entering 
it, we have subjected to the conditions of space that which 
is wholly foreign thereto. Yet these embarrassments should 
be no ground of disquiet, since, sooner or later, whatever 
path we take, we reach the unphenomenal, and thus the 
inexplicable. The how of pure thought is as unintelligible 
as the how of pure matter, and the inter-dependence of the 
two is no more obscure than the manner of the existence of 
either. The nature of thought is as unknown to us as any 
thing can be. We discover easily the relations of things 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 329 

that lie in its light, but what that light is in which they are 
seen, what is the sub-phenomenal nature of the activity 
whose product we retain as a judgment, is wholly inscrutable 
in the sense of being capable of a phenomenal rendering. 
When we reach the bounds of events, we also reach the 
limits of a certain form of explanation. Yet we cannot 
avoid confronting the less plain and penetrable forms of 
existence that lie beyond, without a flat denial of them, 
and such a denial leaves our visible world wholly afloat, 
and is itself the source of greater perplexities than those it 
seeks to escape. Moreover that space is not directly or in- 
directly penetrable by the activities of mind, is a proposition 
whose conditions are too obscure to suff'er it to be ranked 
as an a priori conception. Were it not for our belief in the 
actual existence of the external world, and our connection 
with it, there would be no problem, since ideally the mind 
moves freely in space. If matter did not exist, if powers to 
apprehend it did not belong to us, there would be nothing 
to call forth the question which perplexes us. The very 
query itself thus becomes proof of the fact. 

We are not alone in an inability to solve ultimate prob- 
lems, pertaining to matter beyond the bounds of experience. 
Indeed, an experience that should commence with a com- 
plete knowing, that should even know how it knew, 
would be an eye that saw itself, an ear that heard itself. 
Consciousness is not such an organ. It reveals thought, 
not the nature of the thinking powers ; its phenomenal, 
formal character, not the very essence of the act itself Al] 
that we claim is, that there is no a priori impossibility dis- 
coverable by us, making a transfer of influence from mind 
to matter, from matter to mind, an absurdity. Our last 
traces of physical force in the movement inward are found 
in the brain, our first traces in the movement outward are 
also met with at the same point. Thus far only can the 
eye trace material changes; here is it first able to pick them 



330~ PRLN'CIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

up. How the last nervous impulse is linked to the play 
of consciousness, or how a pure volition breaks forth and 
liberates a physical force without itself becoming such a 
force, we cannot explain. We only affirm that our igno- 
rance is so complete as to cut us off as perfectly from a de- 
nial of the possibility of such a transfer, as from an exposi- 
tion of it. We simply do not see, that the realms of space 
and consciousness anywhere over-lap, or even touch each 
other. We are profoundly ignorant of the nature of any 
connection between the two. We therefore satisfy our- 
selves with denying the existence of any a priori proof 
against such a dependence ; while experience, under the 
spontaneous interpretation which the human mind every- 
where gives it, constantly affirms it as a fact. 

In the ideal world, the mind freely contemplates physi- 
cal being and forces. It moves at liberty among them, re- 
gards them as modified by its own activity, and is, in turn, 
modified in its thinking by them. It thus far recognizes no 
incompatibility between the two realms ; but is prepared 
to accept those actual relations which give occasion to these 
ideal ones. If an a priori necessity, ingrained in mind, 
divided the two fields, how could the mind so easily escape 
it in its own spontaneous movements ? It does not, can- 
not regard lines as at once parallel and intersecting ; a rela- 
tion of space as equivalent to one of time ; how, then, can 
it practically accept the communicability of matter and 
mind, and theoretically pronounce it impossible? 

§ 2. An increasingly prevalent form of philosophy, held 
crudely by some, is that which swallows mind up in matter. 
In its most logical, yet most naked and repulsive forms, it 
resolves all thought into the mere action of nervous centres, 
induced in a purely physical way by physical forces, forces 
direcdy inhering in matter. We have hardly sufficient re- 
spect for this system to treat it with patience. It is for the 
most part the product of scientific inquiry, a study of the 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 33 1 

laws of the material world simply. While often affecting 
great contempt for a priori systems, and claiming experience 
as the only source and test of truth, in its philosophy — by 
courtesy so called — it presents an example of the most un- 
reasonable and absurd a priori method anywhere found in 
the progress of knowledge. 

The momentum, the entire organ um, the scheme of in-* 
quiry and instruments of thought, with which it approaches 
the intellectual world, have been gathered in departments 
utterly alien to the one to be contemplated. Far from be- 
ing ready for independent inquiry, ready to accept new facts 
under their own laws, philosophers of this school approach 
the science of mind, with the antecedent, the a priori con- 
viction, that physical laws reign everywhere, that there is 
the same fixed dependence of events in the realm of thought 
as that which they have found in matter. They thus, with 
the blindness of a limited system, and the willfulness of a 
restricted one, push up the stream of causes as far as they 
can go, and then deny that there is anything beyond. As 
this theory fails, not merely to explain, but even to accept, 
the new and very diverse phenomena of consciousness, to 
analyze and expound them within their own field, under 
their own forms ; and feebly substitutes for them some con- 
nected, but very different phenomena^ to wit those of the 
nervous centres, we feel at liberty, giving its scientific in- 
quiries due praise, to pass it very lightly as a philosophy. 
It deals with shadows and not with substances, with the 
external conditions and accompaniments of mental activity, 
and not with the inner forms and laws of those activities. 
Under that fatal certainty which causes equivalent errors to 
follow each other in opposite extremes, it strives to stand 
outside in space and expound consciousness, as formerly 
che hasty philosopher inclosed in consciousness construct- 
ed his outside, a priori facts. 

The last gate which this school suppose themselves to 



332 - PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

have opened, at which the powers of the physical world are 
to rush in and submerge those of mind, is that known as 
the correlation of forces. All material forces are convertible 
and indestructible. Hence it is concluded, that those 
which are at play in the living and nervous organism mu- 
tually replace each other, can receive no accessions, and 
must evolve from within themselves all the most subtile and 
the most palpable of the activities of rational, human life. 
Accept this relation of forces in the body, and we yet need, 
for the full explanation of the facts, the independent, spon- 
taneous power of mind. I am content to believe, that every 
thought, feeling, volition involves the expenditure, the mod- 
ification of a physical force in some form present to the 
body ; that the mind avails itself of a stream of forces that 
flow incessantly though its physical organization, into this 
dips its wheel, and with it works out its purposes. This 
admission by no means closes the argument. 

We have here a telegraph, we discover that the electric, 
chemical, thermal, mechanical forces liberated are so (iir 
equivalent as to induce us to believe that they are perfectly 
so. We stand in an office ; we behold an intelligible cy- 
pher rapidly appearing on the ribbon before us ; does the 
equivalence, the indestructibility, the convertibility of the 
forces in the mechanism we have investigated, explain the 
message we have received .? We may say, that nothing has 
been lost or added to the sum of forces concerned in the 
transfer of these words. Very well, the words in their 
intelligibility still seek solution. These are explained bv 
the constant interference of a higher power, a remote oper- 
lator, above the circle of self-balanced forces which have 
transferred the motion from the indicating to the inscribing 
index. Now, I may never see the hand that plays the re- 
mote key, but I cannot fail to believe in its existence, nor 
in the independent, intelligent character of the force that 
presides there. I know not how the key is touched, by 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 333 

which the self-poised, i^ervous forces of the brain are set in 
motion ; but in the product wrought out, I do see unmis- 
takably the evidence of such initiation, guidance, arrest 
How the conditions, under which nervous forces are used, 
in evolving intellectual and physical phenomena, are se- 
cured, is not plain, but the existence of such conditions is 
as thoroughly proved as that of the telegraph operator. The 
continuity and equality of the forces in the nervous circuit, 
if fully established, does not weaken or embarrass the con- 
viction. It simply leaves us where it found us, ignorant of 
the way in which the mind employs the current of material 
forces ; these still yield the clearest evidence of being at some 
point of their circuit intersected by another and higher 
circle of influences. To say, that the only force which can 
modify physical forces must itself be a physical force, be- 
traying its presence among them as a new, additive power, 
is not merely to affirm what we do not know, but is to 
make the assertion that the intelligence and spontaneity of 
the products momentarily evolved by these nervous centres, 
do not indicate like qualities in the ultimate agency, an as- 
sertion in flat contradiction of the principles of reasoning 
on which we habitually proceed. 

How little this form of philosophy can accomplish is 
evident from the fact, that it itself must admit, that some 
kinds of matter are intelligent, self-conscious, spontaneous, 
and others are not. Thus having laboriously swallowed up 
mind in matter, it is compelled to re-include under matter, 
distinctions in every way as perplexing and inscrutable as 
those displaced. The facts remain, and either matter is 
self-conscious, or that which is self-conscious is mind. 
Words rather than ideas, are thus offered as explanati ons 
in this deceptive resolution of two distinct elements into 
one. If an adversary of this theory chooses to add the 
farther affirmation that this self-conscious matter is also free, 
the point can only be fairly setded by re-opening the entire 



334 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGV. 

discussion ; for it is antecedently no more improbable that 
matter is free, than it is that matter is intelligent, conscious. 
The forces concerned in intellectual action are either con- 
ditioned from within to all the facts of mind, and we are 
remitted to consciousness to determine what these facts are 
in their entire complement ; or these forces are conditioned 
to their action from without. If we accept the first state- 
ment, we have recognized two kinds of forces or activities 
utterly distinct from each other ; if we accept the last, we 
have used two words, and called one set of forces appearing 
in space, material ; and the same forces arising in con- 
sciousness, mental ; thus either denying or overlooking 
the distincdons between them. What possible explanation 
is there in this .'' Does not the fundamental differences be- 
tween matter and mind, open to all our faculties, remain 
as before ? It would be well for philosophers to remember 
that theories cannot reflexively wipe out facts, and that 
those of mind are of the most primitive and undeniable 
character. What is included among them must be found 
by inquiry within the mind itself If either of the two 
classes of facts are to be merged in the other, physical ones 
necessarily yield to those of mind, as in their nature second- 
ary, and as being known Only as they appear in conscious- 
ness. As the material world is at best reached mediately, 
inferentially, it cannot logically displace the very faculties 
that know it. The knowing must have precedence of the 
thing known. If either is to be found to contain the 
other, it must be the first the second, not the second the 
first. 

Materialism docs not always assume the crude form now 
controverted. It has sometimes a more mixed and subtile 
character, one in which it is partially blended with idealism. 
Mr. Mill, while deriving all knowledge from experience, and 
declining to recognize any intuitive elements, nevertheless 
leaves the existence of matter in doubt. Sensations and 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 335 

perceptions are accepted apparently in an ideal form, and 
the outside world of realities, which lies back of them, is 
left unapproached. Such a system is beset with more diffi- 
culties than either materialism or idealism. Sensations, 
whose existence and influence lie wholly within the mind, 
can with less reason be made to control and give form to 
the mind, than matter conceived as wholly outside and in- 
dependent of the intellectual powers. Indeed it is not easy 
to see how a perception can occupy this anomalous posi- 
tion, on the one side giving law to the mind, on the other, 
cut off from all known, exterior dependence, and resting 
back on tne very faculties whose form it controls. 

This system exhibits the same partial and defective analy- 
sis which belongs to all materialism. Space and time are 
evolved from experience, though they are the conditions of 
experience. They are made to spring from sensations, 
though themselves utterly beyond sensation. Those ideas, 
on the other hand, that are admittedly in the mind, yet ad- 
mittedly beyond experience, are pronounced delusive. Of 
this character is that of causation. Breaking this cord of 
connection, the external world swings loose from this phi- 
losophy. There lies against it concisely these difficulties. 
Claiming experience to be the source of knowledge, it 
elaborates a system far removed from ordinary conviction, 
and subversive of many of its most cherished opinions. It 
knows nothing of matter, while mankind know this chiefly. 
It gives sensations, perceptions control over the mind, while 
the opinions of men divide control between outside and in- 
side conditions. It makes delusive the notion of causa- 
tion, which above all has universal sway in the practical 
world. 

Ic denies moreover the necessity of any ideas whatever, 
while the whole history of pure mathematics, of reasoning, 
show the contrary, It is compelled to refer to experience the 
recognition of such facts as this, that straight lines, parallel 



330 PRI.NCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

through a portion of their extent, are so through their 
whole extent. Its analyses are inadequate, and it rejects 
without ground or reason, the ideas for which it can find 
no place in its system. It saves those notions which it can 
deceptively evolve from experience, and those it fails thus 
to explain it rejects. That is to say, it makes its method 
the test of the facts, and not the facts the test of its 
method. 

§ 3. The next system of which we shall speak, is also a 
mongrel one, that presented by Hamilton. Its most 
striking feature is, that it makes matter itself the direct ob- 
ject of perception, and thus, losing one occasion for intui- 
tive ideas, accepts a part of them, perverts a part, and ne- 
glects a part. Among those resolved into powerlessness, 
are causation, liberty and the infinite. We need only to 
speak of its central characteristic, the direct perception of 
matter. Against this there holds, we believe, the very 
generally accepted axiom that nothing can act save where 
it is. The introduction of the adverb where, shows this 
statement to be limited to physical forces, since these 
alone appear in space, alone have locality. Physical forces 
must be where they are exercised. This will hardly be de- 
nied by any one. For a force to show itself as a force 
where it is not, would be for it to be and not to be, at the 
same point at the same time. Mind, thought, have no 
reference to space, and hence it conveys no very intelligible 
idea to say, that the mind must be, a thought must be 
where it acts. Their objects of consideration may come 
from any quarter, and any distance ; conclusions may strike 
out into the most remote regions, and such words as come 
and go, near and distant, have only a figurative significa- 
tion. Now perception, till the brain is passed, is a thing 
of physical forces, and each organ and nerve can only be 
aifected by that within it, not by that without it. It is 
against the above axiom to say, that I feel the stone, mean- 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 337 

ing thereby that the sensation is outside the organ — conver- 
sant, less or more, with the very essence of being in the 
stone. The organ is affected by what is within itself ; till 
the contour of its^own forces, states is penetrated, the object 
might as well be miles, as inches, or fractions of an inch 
distant. Physical effects lie as content in each organ of 
sense, and are as localized within it, as is the object without 
it. If, then, these physical changes of condition which ac- 
company perception, sensation, were known to, that is per- 
ceived by, the mind, the very object, the source of these, 
would not thereby be directly known or perceived. But these 
states are not perceived, we know nothing about either the 
eye, the ear, or tongue, in seeing, hearing, tasting. Sen- 
sation, perception, enter consciousness, and lose at once 
special relations and organic force. When we have reached 
the last movement, the last physical change in our nervous 
organism, we have not reached the first thing that the mind 
is conscious of in sensation. No organ of sensation is re- 
vealed by its own sensations, but by other sensations of 
other organs of which it is made an object. If, then, the 
mind knows the object at all in perception, it is not directly 
by the movement inward from the object, since this finds 
arrest, change^ when from it, as a cause, there passes a ner- 
vous affection, as effect or content, into an organ of sense ; 
and this again meets with a most inexplicable change, 
when, from a nervous wave passing through a nervous cen- 
tre, there is a transfer to consciousness, and the true con- 
tent of the mind, a sensation, a feeling, lies within it, di- 
vested of local relations. We might as well say, that the 
first ball is in the second ball moving after concussion, as 
to say, that the very object of perception or any portion of 
it, is in this its latest effect. No, the second ball moves 
through a change within itself; the organ becomes a con- 
dition of perception through a new condition of its own 
nervous substance. 



338 ■ PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

It is, then, by an oulward movement of the mind, that 
matter is known, and this is not perception, this is not sen- 
sation, but inference, conclusion, the interpretation of sen- 
sations. Through tlie notions of existence, and causation, 
and space, the mind estabUshes, arranges the external 
world. Sensations, till interpreted and expounded by judg- 
ment, are the crudest possible conditions of knowledge. 
This theory, it may be said, is also contradictory of uni- 
versal belief. Doubtless the part played by the judgments, 
the intuitions, in the action of the senses is very generally 
overlooked ; but the validity of these perceptive conclusions 
is not generally denied by us. A little observation shows us, 
that processes which we had regarded as simple, are indeed 
complex, the apparent simplicity arising only from the ease 
and rapidity with which they are performed. The common 
mind does not pronounce, is not prepared to pronounce, 
on the method of knowledge, what it affirms is the fact 
of knowledge. 

If it be said, that the act of perception itself is the result 
of an outward, not an inward movement, that it takes place 
at the exterior tip of the nerve, not as the consequence of 
physical effects traced to the nerve centres ; we say, that the 
mind must either pass perceptively beyond its own positive 
organism, which presents special and local sensations, be- 
yond the sensational organ, or the perceptive act is still 
within the human body, and thus without, and removed 
from, the object perceived. IMoreover, such a theory ne- 
glects the obvious ministration to perception of all the chain 
of nervous influences, beginning at the centre and passing 
outward. If these are instruments, means to sensation, 
they must intervene in time between the presence of the ob- 
ject and the perception of it. While pure mental actions, 
like intuitive judgments, are without local relation, percep- 
tion, in its physical conditions, comes within space ; and 
these, that they may remain conditions to perception, must 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 339 

be antecedent to it ; that is, the inscrutable transition from 
a nervous state to a feeling follows the inner, nervous cur- 
rent. Of an outer nervous current, there is no proof. 
The mind has therefore no other, no further physical, that 
is no further perceptive connection with the object than 
that in which these several conditions of the organ intervene 
between the mind and the object. 

§ 4. The last system of which we shall speak, is Ideal- 
ism, in its pure form. Idealism, with many m.inor differ- 
ences in the manner of its presentation, has peculiar ex- 
cellences and defects. It seizes the most fundamental, the 
truly germinal element of the universe, and evolves ail else 
with consistent logic from it. It does not humble mind 
under the laws of matter, but makes it the source and law 
of all things. As all existences, all known existences, must 
at some point, in some way, enter consciousness, or be pro- 
ductive of phenomena there, it is evident that idealism has 
no occasion to lose or overlook any part of knowledge, any 
known thing. Neglecting that intuitive, inevitable, infer- 
ential action of the mind by which it recognizes the objec- 
tive validity and relations of the various sources of its per- 
ceptions and sensations, idealism is able, by limiting the 
attention to the phenomena of the internal world alone, in 
part independent, and in part the shadow, of external things, 
to trace the inherent relations among these, and develop a 
purely ideal system of purely ideal objects. Herein, there 
is opportunity for great subtlety, profoundity, consistency, 
and even breadth of thought ; since everything, outer and 
inner, finds representation here. If the images of all the 
objects and events of the external world were brought to the 
eye of a spectator on a transparency, it is plain that he 
might form a very inclusive, and, in some of its aspects, 
correct philosophy concerning them. Consciousness is 
such a screen, and the philosopher, confining his attention 
to this, may evolve a very harmonious system. 



340 - PRINCIPLES Of PSYCHOLOGV. 

Idealism, more signally than most other theories, fails of 
being a science, a knowing as actual of that which is con- 
ceived as theoretical. It matters little, that the inherent 
connections are necessary, unless the premises from point 
to point of the argument are verified as real. The difficul- 
ties of idealism are much the same as those of the a prion 
proof of the existence of God. An ideal conclusion is' 
evolved from ideal premises, but as the last do not take hold 
of the world of facts, no more does the first. Philosophy is 
not merely philosophy, but a science as well. It possesses 
inductive, united with deductive, elements. It resembles 
mixed rather than pure mathematics. It does not start 
with definitions of ideal objects, but with facts. Idealism, 
on the other hand, while contemplating thought, contem- 
plates it as thought merely, in its form and formal relations 
rather than in its actual, phenomenal character and force. 
It deduces the individual from the general. It inquires, 
not so much, what is given actually and practically with in- 
dependent testimony by the several faculties of mind, as 
what can be evolved from the mere fact of thought. 

The result is, that no system is as far removed from gen- 
eral belief and faith as ideaHsm. None so signally fails to 
recognize and expound the phenomena of mind either un- 
der the form they actually assume, or are thought to assume 
in experience. It seems rather a field of intellectual gym- 
nasdcs than of sound, sober inquiry concerning things, 
corrected and guided each instant by an observation of 
facts. 

Idealism starts with assuming the least possible. It 
would commence with nothing if it could. It accepts only 
sensible activity known in consciousness. It must not even 
say, "an action," lest there should thus be implied some- 
thing which is active. From this it proceeds to develop 
matter and mind, activity and divided activity, recognizing 
itself in consciousness, opposing to the naked knowing, the 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 34 I 

consciousness of knowing. Thus it moves onward, spin- 
ning a world out of its own bowels, and with little more oi 
actual correspondence of results to the notions of men, to 
that which is in and about us, than there exists between the 
threads of a spider's web, and the actual forces which hold 
the world together. ■ Yet the idealist relishes his own system 
none the less, for being so stuffed and trussed with the 
ego. 

Science, or scientific philosophy, does not inquire how 
little it may assume, but how much it may consistently ac- 
cept ; at how many points it has reached ultimate facts. If 
the idealist is at liberty to regard the connections of thought 
not as fanciful and chimerical, but, as they seem to be, log- 
ical and coherent ; in short to accept thinking as thinking, 
as a valid and reliable act ; if he is at liberty to assume 
memory, do not these necessary assumptions involve the 
fitness, the right, and the necessity of still farther assump- 
tion .? Are not these, portions of a set of powers, and if 
the philosopher avails himself of two, can he do better than 
to avail himself of all ? Does he trespass any more on 
sound principles in using the entire group, than in using 
these.? Indeed, does he not act absurdly in employing 
thus adroitly a part, and neglecting the remainder, equally 
fitted for another and specific purpose.'' Should it be one's 
object to see how much can be done with the least possible 
means, or to see how much can be accomplished with all 
available means ? Having a clue, an indication, ought not 
he, as a thinker, to follow it as far as it will carry him, and 
does it not carry him logically to a faith in all his faculties, 
since he must have a faith in a part of them ? Possibly, he 
can hop a little distance painfully on one foot ; is it there- 
fore, wise — practically, philosophically wise for him to sling 
up the other.? Under this line of thinking, the scientific 
philosopher at once sets to work to determine by observa- 
tion and analysis all his faculties, and accepts the testimony 



342 ■ PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

of them all, as each necessary to the right understanding 
of the peculiar and independent facts rendered by it. 

Thus the idealist, regarding himself by pre-eminence the 
philosopher, and the less cunning but more wise inquirer, 
begin at once to diverge. The one constructs a system of re- 
markable connections, subtile and sagacious, but altogether 
airy and unsubstantial ; the other acquires classified know- 
ledge, with many lines of causation and deductive relations 
in it ; often presenting, indeed, inscrutable points, yet al- 
ways having the ring and firmness of facts. Idealism is 
ideal ; science, the philosophy we seek, is actual. 

§ 5. The system we have now presented, aims fully to 
recognize the different, independent kinds of knowing. 
Each of these is ultimate, and, therefore, inexplicable un- 
der other forms of knowing. To carry one faculty into the- 
province of another, is to displace that other, and with 
it the information it is fitted to give. Knowledge, in its 
last analj'sis, has always a certain mystery about it ; perhaps 
for the very reason that we can go no farther. There is a 
mysteiy in a color, as green ; in a taste, as sweet ; in an 
odor, as fragrant ; in a judgment, pronouncing the stone 
to be hard ; in every intuition, as that of a cause, of liberty, 
of the infinite. We must not expect to e.x^pel mystery, but 
to reduce it to a minimum, and place it at the right points. 

One of the chief labors of the philosopher is to keep in- 
dependent faculties, so recognized on adequate grounds, 
from devouring each other ; from making incursions into 
fields alien to them, from refusing to accept at all what has 
not been submitted to themselves, and received their pecu- 
liar seal. The imagination and the understanding, belong 
especially to these intrusive faculties, while the intuition of 
cause, having swept through the entire physical world, is 
ever bent on a raid into spiritual realms. To be ready to 
recognize, in their unrestricted forms, the facts of conscious- 
ness as revealed in the mind, in language, in history ; to 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 343 " 

analyze these repeatedly, cautiously, without bias and per- 
version, for the discovery of the simple activities or faculties 
they reveal ; and afterward to hold fast to every affirmation 
of these faculties, is the duty of the wise cultivator of men- 
tal science. We have, in this discussion, developed a little 
love for the word science above that of philosophy, be- 
cause of this inductive element it so obviously includes. 

The independent validity both of causation and of liberty 
has been recognized. Each idea is present to the mind in 
the spontaneous explanation which it offers to a certain class 
of facts. They divide the universe of events between them. 
In the one moiety or portion, we have necessity, in the 
other, liberty ; in the one, movements already conditioned 
by the forces at work, in the other, movements then and 
-there conditioned by the power that initiates them. The 
authority, the proof of these two notions is exactly the same. 
The mind, by its own penetrative, explanatory strength, sup- 
plies them as the ground or condition of the facts before it. 
In these relations to each other, liberty is primary, and 
causation is secondary. Causation marks dependence, a 
dependence which, on its own level, can find no arrest, no 
matter how far we trace it. Events, follow them backward, 
forward, on either hand, are conditioned one upon another ; 
forces are already at work accomplishing the tasks assigned 
them. But a first, an independent, an unconditioned force 
nowhere appears. Causal action, therefore, necessarily 
presents a fragmentary and partial character. Of it alone, 
there can' be made up no whole, no universe; since the 
more we have, the more we demand to explain what we 
have. The events before us, like the section of a river, 
must flow into and flow out of the horizon. We can reach 
no beginning and no conclusion, nor even find diminu- 
tion as we go backward, or increase as we go forward. 
The boundaries of our vision enlarge themselves in all di- 
rections, but are always illusor}^', never found. 



344 ~ PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Liberty, on the contrary, to the extent of the events which 
spring from it, affords a complete commencement. We 
need go no farther back. An arrest is found in it, and the 
causative events which flow thence are explained by the 
form, impetus, and direction, which it has imparted to them. 
Causation is necessarily finite in its manifestation ; since it 
inheres in a power already put forth, and conditioned to a 
given number and form of products. Liberty rests back on 
the agent, never goes forth from him, and partakes, in its 
possibilities, of the breadth and the limitations of his facul- 
ties. It commands more than the actual, to wit the po- 
tential of being. Infinite power can inhere in a free per- 
sonality, and in no other form of existence. 

Causation is closely connected with space. It may be 
questioned whether it ever acts in any other connection. 
It inheres in forces, and these are physical, put forth from 
personality, into separate, spacial existence. The pheno- 
mena of mind which involve cause and effect, do so through 
material dependencies. The mind's own action would 
seem to be either always spontaneous or free, that is its 
spontaneity is revealed under the three forms of thought, 
feeling and volition. Liberty, in contra-distinction, re- 
mains always in consciousness. We can only choose con- 
sciously. Matter can only be the source of force, of causa- 
tive action. Mind is the source of spontaneous and of free 
action ; of spontaneous action, that is action springing 
independently from it, though often evoked by conditions 
not supplied by it ; of free action, that is action held with- 
in, but not bound to, any one of the conditions which are 
its occasion. In physical forces, there is virtually but one 
force. We contemplate only the effective force, the force 
out of equilibrum, and passing into equilibrum by the very 
activity induced. In spontaneous, intellectual life, there is 
also virtually but one condition, voluntary action. These 



PREVALENT PHILOSOPHY. 345 

two conditions, as far as man is concerned, shape combined- 
ly and independently the world of facts. 

Liberty, again, lies back of all causation, because the 
whole flood of forms in which and with which human lib- 
erty plays, springs from the choice of God, is but the exe- 
cutive power with which he momentarily sustains and ac- 
complishes his purposes. Here we reach another, for the 
present, ultimate fact. We know not how the mind alfects 
these secondary physical forces, that in the human body 
play beneath its touch ? No more do we understand how 
these imperishable and uniform forces on which the uni- 
verse is buoyed, of which it is fashioned, go forth from the 
will of God. Yet their wholly finite, dependent, necessary 
character compels the reason thus to refer them, thus to 
centre them, in an independent, self-sufficient source ; and 
therein to complete, to round off the conception of the 
universe in time as in space. A cord of great length is no 
more self-supporting, no more explicable in itself, than a 
shorter one. The only idea which is, as it were, spherical, 
self-centered, demanding nothing, suffering nothing outside 
of itself, is that of an Infinite, Personal God, a sufficient 
source of all things; whose spontaneity and liberty require 
no explanation, and bring explanation to all beside. On 
this ground, and on this alone, the reason accepts the idea, 
as one by which it does see, as a sun that does spread its 
light through the whole heavens, leaving nothing which is 
not sought out by its rays. The final proof of truth is the 
fact of light, the very fact of light admitting no controversy 
and no denial to those who receive it — to whom it gives the 
power to become the sons of God. The real efficiency of 
every word is found in the disclosure of itself as the light 
which comes down from heaven. 

THE END. 



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